Note 6 — Chapter IV · Bülow
T. R. (Thomas Russell) Ybarra translation
One of the most startling incidents of the Kaiser's reign was the interview with him printed in the London Daily Telegraph of Oct. 28, 1908. In it he said that "Englishmen, in giving rein to suspicions unworthy of a great nation," were "mad as March hares"; and that "the prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to England. I am, therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my own land, but it is a minority of the best elements, just as it is in England with respect to Germany." German opinion was, he admitted, "bitterly hostile" to England during the Boer War, and, that the German people, if he had permitted Boer delegates in Berlin, "would have crowned them with flowers." He asserted that he had formulated a plan of campaign in South Africa which Lord Roberts adopted in substance.
The Kaiser was quoted in this interview as declaring Germany needed a large fleet chiefly on account of the Far Eastern situation.
The interview was republished in official German organs, and caused as great a stir in Germany as in England. There were many debates on it in the Reichstag and one or two "investigations."