The message was brief; Hindenburg, said Major von Busche, had become convinced that a request for an armistice must be made. The General Field Marshal had declared, however, that if the request should be refused, or if dishonoring conditions should be imposed, the fight must and could go on. He had no intention of throwing his rifle into the ditch. If necessary, Germany could continue fighting in enemy territory for months. Von Busche did not admit in so many words that all hope of an eventual victory had been lost, but that was the effect of his message. The men who heard from the highest military authorities in this blunt manner that the situation was even worse than they had feared were dumfounded. If Hindenburg and Ludendorff had given up, there was nothing to be said. It was decided to ask for an armistice. Prince Max was inclined to refuse to become Imperial Chancellor if it meant that his first act must be a confession of the impossibility of carrying on the war longer--for that, he perceived clearly, would be the natural and logical deduction from a request for an armistice. He particularly disapproved of making the request as the first act of his chancellorship. This, he pointed out, would give a needless appearance of desperate haste and increase the depressing effect of the action, which would in any event be serious enough. Prince Max's attitude at this crisis was explained by him in an article in the _Preussische Jahrbuecher_ following the armistice. He wrote then: "My peace policy was gravely hampered by the request for an armistice, which was presented to me completely formulated when I reached Berlin. I opposed it on practical political grounds. It seemed to me to be a great mistake to permit the new government's first step toward peace to be followed by such a surprising confession of German weakness. Neither our own people nor the enemy countries estimated our military situation to be such that a desperate step of this kind was necessary. I made a counter-proposal. The government should as its first act draw up a detailed program of its war-aims, and this program should demonstrate to the whole world our agreement with Wilson's principles and our honest willingness to make heavy national sacrifices for these principles. "The military authorities replied that it was impossible to await the result of such a declaration. The situation at the front required that a request for an armistice be made within twenty-four hours. If I refused to make it, the old government would make it. I thereupon decided to form a new government and to support the unavoidable request for an armistice with the authority of a cabinet of uncompromised men. A week later the military authorities informed me that they had erred in their estimate of the situation at the front on October 1st."