Our reply was: we would not give up Galicia to Poland, Transylvania and the Bukovina to Roumania, and Bosnia together with Herzegovina to Serbia, in return for a vague promise of the closer relations of those states with the pitiful remains left to us of the Monarchy.

We were not impelled thereto by dynastic interests.

I myself had persuaded the Emperor to sacrifice Galicia to Poland; but in Transylvania there lived so many Germans and Magyars who simply could not be made a present of, and above all the concessions, to Italy! I once asked a neutral statesman if he could understand what was meant by making Austria voluntarily give up the arch-German Tyrol as far as the Brenner Pass.

The storm that would be let loose by such a peace would uproot more than merely the Minister who had made the peace.

I told my visitor that there were certain sacrifices which on no conditions could be expected of any living being.