Great Britain has boasted of her "splendid isolation," and the German Emperor's is the only alien hand which has controlled any of her fleets. In times gone by a British squadron was placed under the orders of Peter the Great. This incident occurred during the Czar's operations against Sweden, when he received the assistance of a squadron from these islands and hoisted his flag in command of the allied forces. Between that date and the year when the German Emperor became an Admiral of the Fleet the British Navy maintained its absolute independence, and British officers were not even permitted to accept foreign decorations. But soon after receiving the honorary rank from Queen Victoria, the Emperor seized the opportunity to emulate the example of Peter the Great, and he afterwards confessed in a speech he delivered on board the British battleship, _Royal Sovereign_, that the incident had left an indelible impression upon his mind. "One of the best days of my life," he remarked, "which I shall never forget as long as I live, was the day when I inspected the Mediterranean Fleet when I was on board the _Dreadnought_,[7] and my flag was hoisted for the first time." The Emperor at this time was making a cruise in the Mediterranean, and visited the Piræus to attend the wedding of his sister to the present King of Greece. Sir Anthony Hoskins, who was then only a Vice-Admiral, was in command of the British Fleet which had assembled in honour of the royal marriage. The German Emperor decided that in his new rôle as a British officer he would exercise command, and consequently the emblem of an Admiral of the Fleet, which consists of the Union flag, was broken at the main on board the old battleship _Dreadnought_, and Sir Anthony Hoskins, being a junior officer, was forthwith relieved of the control of the British men-of-war, and nominally, though not of course actually, the German Emperor, during the time that his flag was flown, was in command of the greatest of all the fighting squadrons of the British Empire.