The Tsar was outraged and wished to know at once on what I based this opinion. I answered that my opinion was based on Russia's construction of railways and on the arraying of the Russian army along the Prussian-Austrian frontier. Thereupon the Tsar protested that he and his house were Europeans, that his country and his Russians would certainly cleave to Europe, that he would look upon it as a matter of honor to protect Europe from the "yellow men." To this I replied that if this was the Tsar's attitude he must make his military preparations conform to it without delay. The Tsar said nothing. At all events, I sought to utilize Tsar Nicholas II's worry at the growing power of Japan to the advantage of Germany and general European culture. Russia, despite siding with Japan, was the first nation to collapse among all those participating in the war. REPROACHES FOR JAPAN The able statesmen of Japan, of whom there are quite a number, must be in some doubt as to whether they ranged their country on the right side in the war. Yes, they will perhaps ask themselves whether it would not have been more advantageous for Japan to have prevented the World War. This would have been within her powers, had she ranged herself firmly and unequivocally on the side of the Central Powers, from which in former times she had learned so willingly and so much. Had Japan adopted soon enough such an orientation in her foreign policy, and, like Germany, fought by peaceful means for her share in world trade and activity, I should have put the "yellow peril" away in a corner and joyfully welcomed into the circle of peacefully inclined nations the progressive Japanese nation, the "Prussians of the East." Nobody regrets more than I that the "yellow peril" had not already lost its meaning when the crisis of 1914 arose. The experience derived from the World War may yet bring this about.