that the chief danger will be that
our necessarily cautious attitude as regards revealing our war
aims may give rise to the idea that we are merely trifling with a
plan for peace for tactical reasons and do not really earnestly
desire peace.

We must therefore furnish our representatives accredited to
neutrals (the most important being Spain and Holland) with the
necessary instructions, so that they may be able to account for
our cautious attitude and explain the reasons that keep us from
making a premature or one-sided announcement of our conditions.

An announcement of the conditions on both sides would expose the
belligerent parties in both camps to unfavourable criticism and
might easily make the situation more strained; _a one-sided
announcement of the war aims would simply afford the leader of the
belligerent enemy group the opportunity of undoing everything_.

It is therefore in the interests of peace that a communication of
the peace terms should only be made mutually and confidentially,
but we might be able to give the individual neutral various hints
concerning it, to show that our war aims coincide with the lasting
interests of humanity and the peace of the world, that our chief
aim, _the prevention of Russian world dominion on land and of the
English at sea_, is in the interests of the entire world, and that
our peace terms would not include anything that would endanger the
future peace of the world or could be objected to on the neutral
side.

I offer these views for your consideration, and remain in truest
friendship, your devoted

TISZA.

My predecessor, Burian, shortly before he left, had drawn up a peace
proposal together with Bethmann. The Entente's scornful refusal is
still fresh in everyone's memory. Since hostilities have ceased and
there have been opportunities of talking to members of the Entente, I
have often heard the reproach made that the offer of peace could not
have been accepted by the Entente, as it was couched in the terms of a
conqueror who "grants" peace terms to the enemy. Although I will not
attempt to deny that the tone of the peace proposal was very
arrogant--an impression which must have been enhanced by Tisza's
speeches in the Hungarian Parliament--I think, nevertheless, that even
had it been differently worded it had small prospect of success.
However that may be, the stern refusal on the part of the Entente only
str