On the following day, Feb. 9, Lord Haldane had an interview with the
Emperor, the Chancellor, and Admiral Tirpitz on the navy, at which
Tirpitz held out for the new German naval program, which was discussed
at great length. Lord Haldane wrote:
"I insisted that fundamental modification was essential. The tone
was thoroughly friendly, but I felt that I had come to the most
difficult part of my task of getting material fit to bring back for
the consideration of my colleagues. The utmost I was able to get was
this: The Emperor was so disturbed at the idea that the world would not
believe in the reality of the agreement unless the shipbuilding program
was modified that he asked me what I would suggest. I said that it was
a too technical matter for me to discuss here, but that if he would not
drop the new law--which I saw he felt he could not--he might at least
drop out a ship. This idea was never abandoned, but Admiral Tirpitz
combated it so hard that I said: 'Well, can we not spread the tempo?'
After much talking we got to this, that, as I insisted that they must
not inaugurate the agreement by building an additional ship at once,
they should put off building the first ship till 1913, and then should
not lay down another till three years after, (1916,) and not lay down
the third till 1919."
"Admiral Tirpitz wanted us to give some understanding about our own
shipbuilding. He thought the two-power standard a hard one for Germany,
and, indeed, Germany could not make any admission about it. I said it
was not a matter of admission. Germany must be free and we must be
free, and we should probably lay down two keels to their one. In this
case the initiative was not with us, but with them. An idea occurred to
all of us on this observation that we should try to avoid defining a
standard proportion in the agreement, and that, indeed, we should say
nothing at all about shipbuilding in the if the political agreement
was concluded the Emperor should at once announce to the German public
that this entirely new fact modified his desire for the fleet law as
originally conceived, and that it should be delayed and spread out to
the extent we had discussed. For the rest, each of us would remain
masters in our own houses as far as naval matters were concerned."
"The Emperor thought the agreement would affect profoundly the tendency
in shipbuilding, and he certainly should not desire to go beyond the
three ships. The fact of the agreement was the key to everything. The
Chancellor, he said, would propose to me this afternoon a formula which
he had drafted. I said that I would see the Chancellor and discuss
any further territorial questions with him, and would then return as
speedily as I could and report the good disposition which I had found
to my colleagues, and leave the difficulties of not being able to stop
shipbuilding more completely, and, indeed, all other matters to their
judgment. I could only assure the Emperor that I had been much struck
with the friendly disposition in Berlin, and that he would find a not
less friendly disposition in London."