On July 19, the German reichstag adopted resolutions in favor of peace on the basis of mutual understanding and lasting reconciliation among the nations.

The resolutions sounded well but they were accompanied by expressions to the effect that Germany in the war was the victim of aggression and that it approved the acts of its government.

They referred to the "men who are defending the Fatherland," to the necessity of assuring the freedom of the seas, and to the impossibility of conquering a united German nation.

There was no doubt in the mind of any neutral or any belligerent opposing Germany that the German government was the real aggressor and that the freedom of the seas had never been restricted except by Germany herself, hence there was no tendency to accept this as a serious bid for peace.

The resolutions figured largely in German internal politics but were without effect elsewhere.
Stockholm, Sweden was the scene of a number of peace conferences but as they were engineered by socialists of an extreme type and others holding views usually classed as anarchistic, no serious attention was paid to them.