Embassy. In his private residence, he collected Bibles, maps of Palestine and constructed a scale model of the Jewish Temple that had stood in Jerusalem. He studied the Bible closely working out timelines for the Restoration of the Jews and the Second Coming of Jesus. He predicted that in 1897 or 1898 a major event would occur that would lead to the Restoration of the Jews. In early March 1896, Hechler had been perusing the Viennese book stalls when he happened upon a book, Der Judenstaat, by Theodor Herzl. It had been published just a few weeks earlier. Meeting with Herzl Herzl was a well known Viennese writer for the Neue Freie Presse. He had been assigned to cover the infamous Captain Alfred Dreyfus trial in Paris. Dreyfus, a Jewish French military officer, had been convicted (falsely) of selling French military secrets to the Prussians during the recent war. France erupted in spasms of antisemitism that shocked Herzl from his assimilated Jewish complacency to reconsider the realities of deeply embedded antisemitism. Herzl composed the thoughts he had been struggling with over a number of months prior to the conviction of Dreyfus and published them in a book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). Herzl's solution to antisemitism was simple. If France or any country did not want Jews, the Jewish solution was to return to their ancient homeland and reestablish a Jewish State. On 10 March 1896 Herzl recorded in his diary his first meeting with Reverend Hechler. The Rev. William H. Hechler, chaplain to the British Embassy in Vienna, called on me. A likeable, sensitive man with the long grey beard of a prophet. He waxed enthusiastic over my solution. He, too, regard my movement as a "prophetic crisis" – one he foretold two years ago. For he had calculated in accordance with a prophecy dating from Omar's reign (637-638) that after 42 prophetical months, that is, 1,260 years, Palestine would be restored to the Jews. This would make it 1897-1898. When he read my book, he immediately hurried to Ambassador Monson (British Ambassador in Vienna) and told him: the fore-ordained movement is here! Hechler declares my movement to be a "Biblical" one, even though I proceed rationally in all points. He wants to place my tract in the hands of some German princes. He used to be a tutor in the household of the Grand Duke of Baden, he