The true Prussian truculence always
oozes out when it has not a safe margin of superiority in
strength on its side.
The Kaiser was not to be foiled, however, in his determination to
get a foothold in America. As the likelihood that the Panama
Canal would be constructed became a certainty, he redoubled his
efforts. He tried to buy from a Mexican Land Company two large
ports in Lower California for "his personal use." These would
have given him, of course, control over the approach to the Canal
from the Pacific. Simultaneously he sent a surveying expedition
to the Caribbean Sea, which found a spacious harbor, that might
serve as a naval base, on an unoccupied island near the main line
of vessels approaching the Canal from the east, but before he
could plant a force there; the presence of his surveyors was
discovered, and they sailed away.
He now resorted to a more cunning ruse. The people of Venezuela
owed considerable sums to merchants and bankers in Germany,
England, and Italy, and the creditors could recover neither their
capital nor the interest on it.
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