Now we are asking ourselves whether Austria is still sound enough for the part it was intended to give her.

One is afraid of basing an entire policy upon a state which is perhaps already threatened with the fate of Russia.' And Skrzynski adds: 'During the last few days I have heard as follows: It has been decided to wait for a while.'" Our position, then, during the negotiations with Petersburg was as follows: We could not induce Germany to resign the idea of Courland and Lithuania.

We had not the physical force to do so.

The pressure exerted by the Supreme Army Command on the one hand and the shifty tactics of the Russians made this impossible.

We had then to choose between leaving Germany to itself, and signing a separate peace, or acting together with our three Allies and finishing with a peace including the covert annexation of the Russian outer provinces.
The former alternative involved the serious risk of making a breach in the Quadruple Alliance, where some dissension was already apparent.
The Alliance could no longer stand such experiments.