There was no one about.
"All right," he said, "let me have it."
I repeated what I had memorized, what the Emperor had given me in the
secret chamber and immediately afterward destroyed all visible trace
of. I said: "On no account, it does not matter what official commands
you have received or may receive, are you to use open force when the
_Panther_ goes to Agidir. No matter what stress is brought to bear
upon you by arising conditions, no matter what affront may be done
your code of naval honor, you are under no circumstances to use any
force against France or England."
Like myself, when the Emperor gave me that message, the Captain of the
_Panther_ was dumbfounded. It was a direct contradiction of the
official orders he had received from the Foreign Office to go to
Morocco and make a demonstration against the French and the English
interests. Those previous orders had been to create war, this verbal
message was to stop war. Could the German "jingos," the big gun
manufacturers, the shell people, the army and navy men, the powerful
feudal faction have heard me deliver that message to the Captain of
the _Panther_, they would have bellowed in rage. The whole empire
wanted war, but the tired, swarthy faced man in the little underground
chamber at the Wilhelmstrasse, not "absolutely absolute" as he is
popularly supposed to be, deemed it wise not to fly in the face of
public opinion at the time and countermand the official orders to the
_Panther_.
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