At last we received, not the draft of the agreement, but a document asking all sorts of questions and expressing a desire for all sorts of data, a reply to which required many consultations and much reflexion.. Little by little the suspicion grew in me that the English were not in earnest with regard to the agreement since question followed question and details were sought which had nothing directly to do with the agreement. England withdrew more and more from her promises, and no draft of the agreement came to hand.
In Berlin a big agitation set in against the Naval bill, Tirpitz and myself on the part of the Foreign Office and from other quarters, both qualified and unqualified. The Chancellor also, who hoped to achieve the agreement and affix his name to a document which would free Germany from "encirclement" and bring her into a regular and better relationship with England, came out in favour of dropping the Naval' bill. But that would simply have meant allowing a foreign power enormous influence in matters of German national defence and jeopardizing thereby the national right of self-determination and our readiness for battle in case of a war being forced upon us. Had we allowed this it would have amounted to our consenting to permit England, Germany's principal foe, to grant us whatever she wished, after consulting her own interests, without receiving ourselves the guarantee of any equivalent concession.
In this confused state of affairs differences of opinion and violent disputes arose, which, especially in those circles which really knew little about the navy, were conducted with much violence and not always in a practical manner. Admiral von Tirpitz, all through that winter, which was so hard a one for him and me, fought his fight like a genuine, patriotic officer, realizing the situation and seeing through his opponents with clear vision and supporting me with complete conviction to the limit of his ability. All the Government officials agreed that no foreign country could be allowed any voice in helping decide what we had or had not to do toward insuring our protection.
The hope of bringing about the agreement grew ever fainter; England continually showed lessening interest and kept eliminating important parts of her original verbal note, And so it came about that:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.