It was not until the first winter of the war, when I went from Roumania to the Headquarters at Teschen, that the then Archduke invited me to make the return journey with him.
During this railway journey that lasted several hours politics formed the chief subject of conversation, though chiefly concerning Roumania and the Balkan questions.

In any case I was never one of those who were in the Archduke's confidence, and my call to the Ballplatz came as a complete surprise.
At my first audience, too, we conversed at great length on Roumania and on the question whether the war with Bucharest could have been averted or not.
The Emperor was then still under the influence of our first peace offer so curtly rejected by the Entente.

At the German Headquarters at Pless, where I arrived a few days later, I found the prevailing atmosphere largely influenced by the Entente's answer.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who were apparently opposed to Burian's _demarche_ for peace, merely remarked to me that a definite victory presented a possibility of ending the war, and the Emperor William said that he had offered his hand in peace but that the Entente had given him a slap in the face, and there was nothing for it now but war to the uttermost.
It was at this time that the question of the unrestricted U-boat warfare began to be mooted.

At first it was the German Navy only, and Tirpitz in particular, who untiringly advocated the plan.
Hohenlohe,[5] who, thanks to his excellent connections, was always very well informed, wrote, several weeks before the fateful decision was taken, that the German Navy was determined and bent on that aim.
Bethmann and Zimmermann were both decidedly against it.