Did Prince von Bülow seriously believe at the time that Edward VII. and M. Delcassé had devised the Machiavellian scheme of isolating Germany and encircling her with a network of alliances, in order to crush her one day under the weight of a European coalition? At all events, he succeeded in making the German public adopt this theory, and it still prevails to-day in Berlin. A very different impression is conveyed to those who have carefully followed the tortuous path of Imperial statesmanship. William II. was furious at the Anglo-French understanding, which he must have previously regarded as a hopeless prospect so far as Africa, the field of their old rivalries, was concerned; and at Algeciras he tried to shatter it in brutal fashion, by proving to the two Western Powers the futility of their diplomatic work—a mere house of cards that would fall to the ground at the slightest breath from Germany. He wished to see them leave the Conference at daggers drawn, dissatisfied with each other and convinced that their efforts were vain, at the very moment when the Franco-Russian alliance was showing itself incapable of bearing fruit. The visit to Tangier was the first outward sign of that moral transformation in the Emperor of which I have already spoken. The weight assigned in Europe to Germanism, with its growing resources, its constant increase in wealth and population, did not seem to him commensurate with its power. And now, just when his ambitious dreams were beginning to take shape, he saw Germany cleverly thrust aside from Morocco, instead of acquiring the foremost place in that refuge of Moslem barbarism which civilization was trying to invade. The Emperor, together with his people, had hoped by means of the Conference to gain a foothold in Morocco. The disappointment left behind it in his soul an unhappy leaven of spite and anger. It is not surprising, therefore, that before the meeting of the Conference, on which he set such great store, and in order to carry the day against the two Western Powers, William II. for the first time openly behaved in a high-handed manner towards his neighbours. His threats were still in a rather subdued key, but in the language of his envoys, at the informal diplomatic discussions, there loomed up the vision of a Germany clad in all her panoply of war, helmet on head and sword in hand, ready for use at any moment. Later on, we had other opportunities of seeing this vision, before it became a pitiless reality.