Note 402 — Chapter IX

An ardent advocate of the proposed Anglo-German alliance and a sufferer from the “nightmare of coalitions,” Eckardstein had resigned his position in October, 1902, because he disapproved of the diplomatic method and the policy of his foreign office and “saw black ahead” for his country; also perhaps because of personal pique at not having been appointed ambassador in London upon the death of the aged Count Hatzfeldt (Eckardstein, II, 412 f.). For his dispatch to Bülow see G.P., XVII, 567 f., No. 5369; also published with minor changes in Eckardstein, II, 425 f. The few changes from the original which occur in some of the documents in Eckardstein’s memoirs are not of any great importance. On the whole his judgments were sound.