In a policy of that nature executive ability was of supreme importance, and that was exactly what was usually lacking.
The plan was not without good features.

The appointment of the Bavarian Count Hertling to be Imperial Chancellor was not due to Viennese influence, though a source of the greatest pleasure to us, and the fact of making a choice that satisfied Vienna played a great part with the Emperor William.

Two Bavarians, Hertling and Kuehlmann, had taken over the leadership of the German Empire, and they, apart from their great personal qualities, presented a certain natural counter-balance to Prussian hegemony through their Bavarian origin; but only so far as it was still possible in general administration which then was in a disturbed state.

But farther they could not go without causing injury.
Count Hertling and I were on very good terms.

This wise and clear-sighted old man, whose only fault was that he was too old and physically incapable of offering resistance, would have saved Germany, if she possibly could have been saved, in 1917.