f an honourable
peace without annexationist aims--then it is madness to attack that
Government from behind, to interfere with its freedom of action and
hamper its movements._ Those who do so are fighting, not against the
Government, they are fighting blindly against the people they pretend
to serve and against themselves.

"As for yourselves, gentlemen, it is not only your right, but your
duty, to choose between the following alternatives: either you trust
me to proceed with the peace negotiations, and in that case you must
help me, or you do not trust me, and in that case you must depose me.
I am confident that I have the support of the majority of the
Hungarian delegation. The Hungarian Committee has given me a vote of
confidence. If there is any doubt as to the same here, then the matter
is clear enough. The question of a vote of confidence must be brought
up and put to the vote; if I then have the majority against me I shall
at once take the consequences. No one of those who are anxious to
secure my removal will be more pleased than myself; indeed far less
so. Nothing induces me now to retain my office but the sense of duty,
which constrains me to remain as long as I have the confidence of the
Emperor and the majority of the delegations. A soldier with any sense
of decency does not desert. But no Minister for Foreign Affairs could
conduct negotiations of this importance unless he knows, and all the
world as well, that he is endowed with the confidence of the majority
among the constitutional representative bodies. There can be no half
measures here. You have this confidence or you have not. You must
assist me or depose me; there is no other way. I have no more to say."

5

=Report of the Peace Negotiations at Brest-Litovsk=

The Austro-Hungarian Government entered upon the peace negotiations at
Brest-Litovsk with the object of arriving as quickly as possible at a
peace compact which, if it did not, as we hoped, lead to a general
peace, should at least secure order in the East. The draft of a
preliminary peace was sent to Brest containing the following points:

1. Cessation of hostilities; if general peace should not be
concluded, then neither of the present contracting parties to afford
any support to the enemies of the other.

2. No surrender of territory; Poland, Lithuania and Courland retaining
the right of determining their own destiny for the future.

3. No indemnity for costs of war or damages due to