Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/292

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
272
DRAMATIC MOMENTS

nence and a dead letter, not to be recognized by an omnipotent sovereign holding dominion under high heaven; another was that a "debating society," that ridiculous form of govermnent, a democracy, which by its very existence was an insult to Majesty, should be taught the respect due a legitimate queen-regent. And the third was the familiar axiom that no affair of importance should be undertaken anywhere in the world without consulting the German Army and the German Kaiser.

So it is reliably reported that Von Holleben, the German Ambassador, and Von Hengelmüller, his Austrian understudy, convened the Diplomatic Corps in Washington under instructions from Berlin to have the Yankees presented with an order beginning and ending with the single word "Verboten." This program would have been carried through, and the rough-riders have found themselves confronted with an entirely different proposition, except for one obstacle—a constant and obstinate obstacle, beginning even then to be re-