It was with difficulty that Colonel House could get His Majesty away from this subject.  Whatever topic he touched upon, the Kaiser would immediately start declaiming on the dangers that faced Europe from the East.  His insistence on this accounted partly for the slight signs of impatience which the American showed.  He feared that all the time allotted for the interview would be devoted to discussing the Japanese.  About another nation, the Kaiser showed almost as much alarm as he did about Japan, and that was Russia.  He spoke contemptuously of France and Great Britain as possible enemies, for he apparently had no fear of them.  But the size of Russia and the exposed eastern frontier of Germany seemed to appal him.  How could Germany join a peace pact, and reduce its army, so long as 175,000,000 Slavs threatened them from this direction?

Another matter that the Kaiser discussed with derision was Mr. Bryan’s arbitration treaty.  Practically all the great nations had already ratified this treaty except Germany.  The Kaiser now laughed at the treaties and pooh-poohed Bryan.  Germany, he declared, would never accept such an arbitration plan.  Colonel House had particular cause to remember this part of the conversation three years afterward, when the United States declared war on Germany.  The outstanding feature of the Bryan treaty was the clause which pledged the high contracting parties not to go to war without taking a breathing spell of one year in which to think the matter over.  Had Germany adopted this treaty, the United States, in April, 1917, after Germany had presented a casus belli by resuming unrestricted submarine warfare, could not have gone to war.  We should have been obliged to wait a year, or until April, 1918, before engaging in hostilities.  That is, an honourable observance of this Bryan treaty by the United States would have meant that Germany would have starved Great Britain into surrender, and crushed Europe with her army.  Had the Kaiser, on this June afternoon, not notified Colonel House that Germany would not accept this treaty, but, instead, had notified him that he would accept it, William II might now be sitting on the throne of a victorious Germany, with Europe for a footstool.

Despite the Kaiser’s hostile attitude toward these details, his general reception of the President’s proposals was not outwardly unfriendly.  Perhaps he was sincere, perhaps not; yet the fact is that he manifested more cordiality to this somewhat vague “get-together” proposal than had any of his official advisers.  He encouraged Colonel House to visit London, talk the matter over with British statesmen, and then return to Berlin.

“The last thing,” he said, “that Germany wants is war We are getting to be a great commercial country.  In a few years Germany will be a rich country, like England and the United States.  We don’t want a war to interfere with our progress.”

Any peace suggestion that was compatible with German safety, he said, would be entertained.  Yet his parting words were not reassuring.