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For 35 years before he became King, "he had talked about an Entente with France, and for 15 years [about] a rapprochement with Russia." Both notions were pooh-poohed by his mother and most of her ministers, who worked stubbornly for an entente with Germany. Bertie's views did not prevail until the heirs of Bismarck made it clear that Germany intended to expand at Britain's expense. Bertie came to the throne in 1901, and from then until his death (1910) "there was scarcely a diplomatic move ... which did not receive his active help." What Author Cowles suggests is that Bertie, the monarch who preferred women to men and acted by hunch and instinct, ended by very nearly proving "that kingship is more effective when it exerts its personality than when it exerts its brain."