Note 620 — Chapter XII

The suggestion of a conference was first made by Kühlmann in a dispatch of March 2 (ibid., p. 293 n.). On March 27 Bülow still thought it possible of execution only in case Great Britain accepted it (Bülow to Kühlmann, March 27, 1905, ibid., 293 f., No. 6591). After the Emperor’s visit, however, he accepted the proposal. In Feb., 1904, Lascelles had reported a conversation with Bülow in which the latter had opposed calling a conference on the Macedonian question, arguing as follows: “A Congress was excellent at the end of a war when both belligerents were more or less exhausted and desired peace, but it was a most dangerous thing at any other time, and would only accentuate more strongly any difference of opinion which might exist and thus cause greater complications, unless indeed the Great Powers should have decided beforehand exactly what was to be done, and should have appealed to the Congress, to give the sanction of Europe to the decisions they had already taken” (Lascelles to Lansdowne, Feb. 26, 1904, B.D., V, 72). A year later Bülow had apparently forgotten this very accurate judgment. Or possibly he saw no other way out, and faced the facts with his usual optimism.