One section demanded the annexation of parts of Belgium and France, with an indemnity of milliards; others were less exorbitant, but all were agreed that peace could only be concluded with an extension of German possessions.

It was the easiest thing in the world to get on well with the German military party so long as one believed in their fantastic ideas and took a victorious peace for granted, dividing up the world thereafter at will.

But if anyone attempted to look at things from the point of view of the real situation, and ventured to reckon with the possibility of a less satisfactory termination of the war, the obstacles then encountered were not easily surmounted.

We all of us remember those speeches in which constant reference was always made to a "stern peace," a "German peace," a "victorious peace." For us, then, the possibility of a more favourable peace--I mean a peace based on mutual understanding--I have never believed in the possibility of a victorious peace--would only have been acute in the case of Poland and the Austro-Polish question.

But I cannot sufficiently emphasise the fact that the Austro-Polish solution never was an obstacle in the way of peace and could never have been so.