Let us be fair to Herr Hitler. I am convinced
that to the very depths of his soul he desires friendship with this country. It is painful for him to reflect that we possess in Great Britain no statesman of his own calibre. It is for him a profound and galling disappointment to discover that there is no possible Prime Minister of England who would agree to partition the world between Germany and England. He has no desire at all to deprive us of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Why should we make all this fuss about Rumania, Turkey, Holland, Switzerland and Scandinavia? He is still uncertain whether our hesitation is due to perversity or lack of leadership. If only we possessed a man of genius equal to his own, then it would take but one hour to divide between us the ocean and the earth. I should wish to repeat a remark that I made five years ago. "There is only one difference," I said, "between the Germany of today and the Germany of 1913. Before the war, German diplomacy was governed by the views of the officers' mess. Today it is governed by the views of the sergeants' mess."
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