"That we can supply," said Herzl. "It would cost billions, but it will bring in billions too."
"Well, you certainly have enough money, more than all of us," said the Kaiser.
It was a brief interview. It was vague and seemed to lead nowhere. Herzl was under the impression that certain influences had been exerted between the interview in Constantinople and the audience in Jerusalem.
When the official German communique was issued, the encounter with Herzl was hid in a closing paragraph and deprived of all significance. This is how it read:
"Later the Kaiser received the French Consul, also a Jewish deputation which presented him with an album of pictures of the Jewish colonies in Palestine. In reply to an address by the leader of the deputation, His Majesty remarked he viewed with benevolent interest all efforts directed to the improvement of agriculture in Palestine as long as these accorded with the welfare of the Turkish Empire and were conducted in a spirit of complete respect for the sovereignty of the Sultan."
It was a sudden descent from hope into a closed road. Herzl refused to be discouraged. It was hard for him to realize that the Kaiser's enthusiasm in Constantinople could have cooled off so quickly in Jerusalem, but it seemed that there was no way to continue contact with the people he had interested in Germany. He tried to pick up the broken threads, but, once broken, they could not be revived. The Grand Duke of Baden remained ever constant and loyal, but he could do nothing. Herzl never saw the Kaiser again. In a letter to the Grand Duke, closing this chapter of Zionist history, Herzl said: