Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/110

106 for the localization, as far as feasible, of the Austro-Hungarian-Serbian conflict, I venture most humbly to recommend that Your Majesty does not order a premature return of the Fleet for the time being." [When Russia mobilizes my Fleet must be already in the Baltic, so it is going home.—W.]

On July 26th, Bethmann once more besought his Imperial master "to remain in Norway for the present, as this would materially facilitate England's proposed intermediary action in Petersburg, which is now visibly vacillating." To which William remarks: ""From what is that (Petersburg's vacillation) to be inferred? Not from the material submitted to me.""

And even before this, in reply to the desire that he should remain in Norway, he said:

""There is a Russian Fleet! In the Baltic there are now five Russian torpedo-boat flotillas making instructional cruises, all or part of which could be stationed before the Belts in sixteen hours, blocking the way. Port Arthur should be a lesson! My Fleet has marching orders for Kiel, and thither it goes!""

One sees William reckoned with the immediate outbreak of the world-war after the delivery of the Ultimatum to Serbia. He therefore steamed home at full speed, in spite of Bethmann-Hollweg. He begins his active intervention in the war policy by snubbing his own Chancellor, "most humbly daring to recommend," as if he were a bootblack, addressing him as a creature who has not yet grasped the general situation. Military superiority thinks it is treating the Chancellor with