must keep cool._ The match must be
played out in cold blood, and the end will be satisfactory if the
peoples of the Monarchy support their representatives at the
conference.

"It should be stated beforehand that the basis on which
Austria-Hungary treats with the various newly-constituted Russian
states is that of 'no indemnities and no annexations.' That is the
programme which a year ago, shortly after my appointment as Minister,
I put before those who wished to talk of peace, and which I repeated
to the Russian leaders on the occasion of their first offers of peace.
And I have not deviated from that programme. Those who believe that I
am to be turned from the way which I have set myself to follow are
poor psychologists. I have never left the public in the slightest
doubt as to which way I intended to go, and I have never allowed
myself to be turned aside so much as a hair's breadth from that way,
either to right or left. And I have since become far from a favourite
of the Pan-Germans and of those in the Monarchy who follow the
Pan-German ideas. I have at the same time been hooted as an inveterate
partisan of war by those whose programme is peace at any price, as
innumerable letters have informed me. Neither has ever disturbed me;
on the contrary, the double insults have been my only comfort in this
serious time. I declare now once again that I ask not a single
kreuzer, not a single square metre of land from Russia, and that if
Russia, as appears to be the case, takes the same point of view, then
peace must result. Those who wish for peace at any price might
entertain some doubt as to my 'no-annexation' intentions towards
Russia if I did not tell them to their faces with the same complete
frankness that I shall never assent to the conclusion of a peace going
beyond the lines just laid down. If the Russian delegates demand any
surrender of territory on our part, or any war indemnity, then I shall
continue the war, despite the fact that I am as anxious for peace as
they, or I would resign if I could not attain the end I seek.

"This once said, and emphatically asserted, that there is no ground
for the pessimistic anticipation of the peace falling through, since
the negotiating committees are agreed on the basis of no annexations
or indemnities--and nothing but new instructions from the various
Russian Governments, or their disappearance, could shift that basis--I
then pass to the two great difficulties in which are cont