On receiving news of the Jameson Raid on 31 December 1895, the Kaiser reacted furiously, approving decisions to order a landing party of 50 marines to proceed to Pretoria to protect the Germans there and to dispatch a cruiser to Delagoa Bay. At a meeting on 1 January 1896 his behaviour towards his own Minister of War was so violent that the latter had difficulty in restraining himself from "drawing swords" and doubted that the Kaiser was "entirely normal" mentally. On 2 January the Kaiser wrote to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to pursue the idea of a continental league against Great Britain.