He encouraged Colonel House to visit London, talk the matter over with British statesmen, and then return to Berlin.
"The last thing," he said, "that Germany wants is war We are getting to be a great commercial country.

In a few years Germany will be a rich country, like England and the United States.

We don't want a war to interfere with our progress." Any peace suggestion that was compatible with German safety, he said, would be entertained.

Yet his parting words were not reassuring.
"Every nation in Europe," he said, "has its bayonets pointed at Germany.
But--"-- and with this he gave a proud and smiling glance at the glistening representatives of his army gathered on this brilliant occasion--"we are ready!" Colonel house left Berlin, not particularly hopeful; the Kaiser impressed him as a man of unstable nervous organization--as one who was just hovering on the borderland of insanity.

Certainly, this was no man to be entrusted with such powers as the American had witnessed that day at Potsdam.