It was at that time that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain was
proposing an Anglo-German alliance and Chirol had nothing but friendly feelings for Germany. His stay in Germany was a period of bitter disillusionment, com- parable with that of his great friend, Sir Cecil Spring Rice. He saw a whole nation being docilely bent to the will of arrogant politicians who were in love with domination. He was reluctant to believe this at first, but when he could no longer doubt it he did not hesitate to state his conclu- sions uncompromisingly. Life as a consequence became very difficult for him in Berlin. In 1899 he became Director of the Foreign Department of the Times, and he taught all the foreign correspondents of the paper, par- ticularly the younger correspondents who became his 'devoted pupil's, to value above all things precision and fullness of "documentation."
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