Early in the evening of Wednesday, July 29, the Kaiser summoned a council of war at Potsdam. The council lasted far into the night. Dawn of Thursday was approaching before it ended. All the great paladins of State, civilian, military and naval, were present. Prince Henry of Prussia, freshly arrived from London, brought the latest tidings of sentiment prevailing in England. The Imperial Chancellor and Foreign Secretary von Jagow were armed with up-to-the-minute news of the diplomatic situation in Paris and St. Petersburg. Russia’s plans and movements were the all-dominating issue. General von Falkenhayn, Minister of War, was prepared with confidential information that, despite the Czar’s ostensible desire for peace and his still pending communication with the Kaiser to that end, "military measures and dispositions" of unmistakably menacing character were in progress on both the German and Austrian frontiers. Lieutenant-General von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff, was supplied not only with corroborative information of the imminency of "danger" from Russia, but with reassuring details of Germany’s power to meet and check it. Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, Secretary of the Navy, and Admiral von Pohl, Chief of the Admiralty Staff, were ready to convince the Supreme War Lord that the fleet was no less prepared than the army for any and all emergencies. There was absolutely nothing, from a military and naval standpoint, so the generals and admirals were eager to demonstrate, to justify Germany in assuming and maintaining anything but "a strong position."