Prince Lichnowsky was known to be an Anglophile; everything English--English literature, English country life, English public men--had for him an irresistible charm; and his greatest ambition as a diplomat had been to maintain the most cordial relations between his own country and Great Britain.

This was precisely the type of Ambassador that fitted into the Imperial purpose at that crisis.

Germany was preparing energetically but quietly for war; it was highly essential that its most formidable potential foe, Great Britain, should be deceived as to the Imperial plans and lulled into a sense of security.

The diabolical character of Prince Lichnowsky's selection for this purpose was that, though his mission was one of deception, he was not himself a party to it and did not realize until it was too late that he had been used merely as a tool.

Prince Lichnowsky was not called upon to assume a mask; all that was necessary was that he should simply be himself.