Mycroft enjoys a long-distance chess match with Kaiser Wilhelm. No one but the two participants know that the stakes are rather high for a friendly game; if Mycroft loses England is subject to German rule. The opposite is true if the elder Holmes wins the match.

(It was either this or wipe out half of Europe's young men in a bloody war; Mycroft was fortuitous enough to suggest this during the furor over Archduke Ferdinand's assassination.)