Note 336 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
On Nov. 5, 1904, Spring Rice wrote to Roosevelt as follows: “Emperor William has got the ear of the Emperor here. . . . . It is plain that Germany naturally enough wants to see Russia have a free hand in Asia and hopes in exchange to have one in Europe; that if England could be engaged in a war with Russia which would require her fleet to be absent in the East, the German fleet, especially if France would come in, would have a good chance for a sudden descent on England” (quoted in Dennett, Roosevelt and the Russo-Japanese War, pp. 73 f.; see also Gwynn, I, 414 ff., 436, 438 ff.).