will be always well to estimate
confidential reports, no matter from what source they proceed, as
being 50 per cent. less optimistic than they appear. The more
pessimistic opinion that prevailed in Vienna, compared with Berlin,
was due, first and foremost, to the reliance placed on news coming
from the enemy countries. Berlin, too, was quite certain that we were
losing time, although Bethmann once thought fit in the Reichstag to
assert the contrary; but the German military leaders and the
politicians looked at the situation _among our opponents_ differently
from us.

When the Emperor William was at Laxenburg in the summer of 1917 he
related to me some instances of the rapidly increasing food trouble in
England, and was genuinely surprised when I replied that, though I was
convinced that the U-boats were causing great distress, there was no
question of a famine. I told the Emperor that the great problem was
whether the U-boats would actually interfere with the transport of
American troops, as the German military authorities asserted, or not,
but counselled him not to accept as very serious facts a few passing
incidents that might have occurred.

After the beginning of the unrestricted U-boat warfare, I repeat that
many grave fears were entertained in England. It is a well-known fact.
But it was a question of fears, not actualities. A person who knew how
matters stood, and who came to me from a neutral country in the summer
of 1917, said: "If the half only of the fears entertained in England
be realised, then the war will be over in the autumn"; but a wide
difference existed between London's fears and Berlin's hopes on the
one hand, and subsequent events on the other, which had not been taken
into account by German opinion.

However that may be, I consider there is no doubt that, in spite of
the announced intervention of America, the summer of 1917 represented
a more hopeful phase for us. We were carried along by the tide, and it
was essential to make the most of the situation. Germany must be
brought to see that peace must be made, in case the peace wave became
stronger.

I resolved, therefore, to propose to the Emperor that he should make
the first sacrifice and prove to Berlin that it was not only by words
that he sought for peace. I asked him to authorise me to state in
Berlin that, in the event of Germany coming to an agreement with
France on the Alsace-Lorraine question, Austria would be ready to cede
Galicia