Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/613

 welcome his royal relatives beneath his own roof.

To no country of Europe did his attitude as king differ from that which he had adopted while he was prince. To France his devotion was always pronounced. He had delighted in visiting Italy, Russia, Austria, and Portugal. His relations with Germany had always stood on a somewhat Personal peculiar footing, and they, too, relations with underwent small change. They Germany. ^ad k een co i ou red to a larger extent than his other foreign connections by the personal conditions of family kinship. Since the Danish war, owing to the influence of his wife and her kindred, he had never professed in private much sympathy with German political ambitions. The brusque speech and manner, too, with which Bismarck invariably treated the English royal family had made German policy uncongenial to them. Despite the king's affection for his nephew, the German emperor, short seasons of domestic variance between the two were bound to recur, and the private differences encouraged the old-standing coolness in political sentiment. But the king was never long estranged from his nephew. He was thoroughly at home with Germans and when he went among them evoked their friendly regard. No deliberate and systematic hostility to the German people could be truthfully put to the king's credit. His personal feeling was very superficially affected by the mutual jealousy which, from causes far beyond his control, grew during his reign between the two nations.

While ambitious to confirm as king the old footing which he had enjoyed on the European continent as prince, his conservative instinct generated involuntary misgivings of England's friendship with peoples outside the scope of his earlier experience. He was startled by to Japan? de so novel a diplomatic step as the alliance with Japan, which was concluded during the first year of his reign (12 Feb. 1902) and was expanded later (27 Sept. 1905). But he was reassured on learning of the age and dignity of the reigning Japanese dynasty. When the Anglo -Japanese arrangement was once effected he lent it all the advantage of his loyal personal support. He entertained the Japanese Prince and Princess Arisugawa on their visit to London, and conferred on the prince the distinction of G.C.B. (27 June 1905). In 1906, too, after the Russo-Japanese war, he admitted to the Order of Merit the Japanese heroes of the conflict, Field-marshals Yamagata and Oyama, and Admiral Togo. XI Family feeling solely guided the king's first steps in the foreign arena. After his eldest sister's death the king and emperor made open avowal of mutual affection. The German On 26 Jan ' 1902 the Prince of emperorat Wales was the emperor's guest Sf adl 5& in ' at Berlin for his birthday, and on the king s coronation the emperor made him an admiral of the German fleet. At the end of the year, on 8 Nov. 1902, the emperor arrived at Sandringham to attend the celebration of his uncle's sixty-first birthday. He re- mained in England twelve days, and had interviews with the prime minister and the foreign secretary. Details of diplomacy were not the theme of the uncle and nephew's confidences. Rumours to a contrary effect were current early next year, when the two countries made a combined naval demon- stration hi order to coerce the recalcitrant president of the Venezuelan republic, who had defied the just claims of both England and Germany. It was imagined in some quarters that the king on his own initiative had committed his ministers to the joint movement in an informal conversation with the emperor at Sandringham. Much wrang- ling had passed between the statesmen and the press of the two countries. But the apparently sudden exchange of a campaign of altercation for concerted action to meet a special emergency was no exceptional diplomatic incident.

The spring of 1903 saw the first foreign tour of the king's reign and his personal introduction to the continent in his new role. On 31 March 1903 he left Portsmouth harbour on board the royal yacht the Victoria and Albert, on a five o^iQoa 1 * weeks' cruise, in the course of which he visited among other places Lisbon, Rome, and Paris. The expedition was a vacation exercise, which gave him the opportunity of showing friendly courtesy to foreign rulers and peoples. He went on his own initiative. His travelling companions were members of his own household, who were personal Thestatugin fri nda - There was also in his his suite of retinue a member of the per-Mr. Charles manent staff of the foreign Hardmge. offi( ^ ^ H(m Charles Hardinge, assistant under-secretary there. Mr. Hardinge, who was made K.C.V.O. and K.C.M.G. in 1904, and Baron Hardinge of