y to
indicate that the Emperor Charles was carrying out the political
wishes of his uncle, Ferdinand. Although it had been the Archduke's
intention to have made me his Minister for Foreign Affairs, my
appointment to the post by the Emperor Charles had nothing to do with
that plan. It was due, above all, to his strong desire to get rid of
Count Burian and to the lack of other candidates whom he considered
suitable. The Red Book that was published by Count Burian after the
outbreak of war with Roumania may have attracted the Emperor's
attention to me.

Although the Emperor, while still Archduke, was for several years my
nearest neighbour in Bohemia--he was stationed at Brandeis, on the
Elbe--we never became more closely acquainted. In all those years he
was not more than once or twice at my house, and they were visits of
no political significance. It was not until the first winter of the
war, when I went from Roumania to the Headquarters at Teschen, that
the then Archduke invited me to make the return journey with him.
During this railway journey that lasted several hours politics formed
the chief subject of conversation, though chiefly concerning Roumania
and the Balkan questions. In any case I was never one of those who
were in the Archduke's confidence, and my call to the Ballplatz came
as a complete surprise.

At my first audience, too, we conversed at great length on Roumania
and on the question whether the war with Bucharest could have been
averted or not.

The Emperor was then still under the influence of our first peace
offer so curtly rejected by the Entente. At the German Headquarters at
Pless, where I arrived a few days later, I found the prevailing
atmosphere largely influenced by the Entente's answer. Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, who were apparently opposed to Burian's _demarche_ for
peace, merely remarked to me that a definite victory presented a
possibility of ending the war, and the Emperor William said that he
had offered his hand in peace but that the Entente had given him a
slap in the face, and there was nothing for it now but war to the
uttermost.

It was at this time that the question of the unrestricted U-boat
warfare began to be mooted. At first it was the German Navy only, and
Tirpitz in particular, who untiringly advocated the plan.
Hohenlohe,[5] who, thanks to his excellent connections, was always
very well informed, wrote, several weeks before the fateful decision
was taken, that the Germa