But we were met with a _non possumus_ and the German answer that territorial concessions to France were out of the question.
The whole of Galicia was here involved, but I was firmly assured that if the plan succeeded Germany would protect the rights of the Ukraine; and consideration for the Ukrainians would certainly not have restrained me had it been a question of the highest value--of peace itself.
When I perceived that the likelihood of converting Berlin to our views steadily diminished I had recourse to other means.

The journey of the Socialist leaders to Stockholm will be remembered.

It is true that the Socialists were not "sent" by me; they went to Stockholm of their own initiative and on their own responsibility, but it is none the less true that I could have refused them their passes if I had shared the views of the Entente Governments and of numerous gentlemen in our own country.

Certainly, I was at the time very sceptical as to the outcome, as I already saw that the Entente would refuse passes to their Socialists, and consequently there could be nothing but a "rump" parliament in the end.

But despite all the reproaches which I had to bear, and the argument that the peace-bringing Socialists would have an enormous power in the State to the detriment of the monarchical principle itself, I never for a moment hesitated to take that step, and I have never regretted it in itself, only that it did not succeed.
It is encouraging to me now to read again many of the letters then received criticising most brutally my so-called "Socialistic proceedings" and to find that the same gentlemen who were then so incensed at my policy are now adherents of a line of criticism which maintains that I am too "narrow-minded" in my choice of new means towards peace.
It will be remembered how, in the early autumn of 1917, the majority of the German Reichstag had a hard fight against the numerically weaker but, from their relation to the German Army Command, extremely powerful minority on the question of the reply to the Papal Note.