“Dans cette guerre je suis complètement Anglais.” Thus the Emperor Franz Joseph, in the presence of the French and Russian ambassadors, to their British colleague, Sir Horace Rumbold, at a court ball on 9 January 1900. The emperor went on to express his regret at the “difficulties” that the British had recently encountered, and his hope that the campaign would soon take a more favourable turn. In this attitude to the war, Franz Joseph remained absolutely consistent to the end. As matters improved in the summer he spoke to the British military attaché “in the most hearty and enthusiastic manner of our recent successes in South Africa”; and he was in turn particularly gratified to discover, from the “more than friendly tone of the leading English papers”, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday in August, “how well his sincere friendship for England was understood by English public opinion”. True, by December he was impressed by the “extraordinary mobility of de Wet and his continuous supply of ammunition”, but he remarked “at the same time on the exceptional marching powers and endurance of our men”, “alluded with evident satisfaction” to Kruger's flight, and “said he considered [the] solution favourable to Great Britain which he had always so earnestly desired was fast approaching”. As the war dragged on, the emperor “gave free expression to his regret at the unfortunate obstinacy of the Boers”, but he was “immensely pleased” at, and took the lead among the European sovereigns in offering the British his congratulations on, their eventual victory.