"A friendly attitude on the part of England toward the Triple Alliance--what Professor Hermann Oncken calls the moral extension of the Triple Alliance over the Channel--was the aim of our policy, and in this we were sure of the complete accord of our allies. I never thought that the agreements about Bagdad and the colonies would mean an immediate alteration of England's course in European policy. These agreements were to prepare the way for this change of course. I was under no illusions about the difficulties which would still have to be overcome. But difficulties, and even resistance on the part of public opinion in one's own country, cannot prevent us from following a road that is seen to be right. The league between Germany and Austria-Hungary, supported by friendship with England, would have created a peace bloc of unassailable strength. The increasing Irredentism of Italy, her friction with Austria on the Adriatic, and the Russophile and also Irredentist tendencies of Rumania, would have lost their importance. Then, in given circumstances, the Triple Alliance treaty might have been modified. The union with England would also have secured us against Russian aggression, and the obligations imposed upon us by our alliance would thereby have been diminished. "The road to this goal was long. The calm development was crossed by the Serajevo murders, and in the fateful hour of August, 1914, the English Government--instead of keeping peace--preferred to join in the war against us. The English Government has probably since then been assailed by serious doubts as to whether its choice was right. In any case, it assumed a considerable share of the guilt for the bloodshed in Europe." Herr von Jagow then denies that his scheme was inevitably doomed to failure, saying that the policy of England is more liable to adaptation and alteration than the policy of any other country, and that "more far-seeing statesmen than those who were intrusted with the fortunes of the Island Empire in 1914--think only of the Pitts, Disraelis, and Salisburys--held other views about the orientation of England toward Germany and Russia." "As matters stand today, attempts to arrive at clearness about the respective parts played by our enemies at the outbreak of the war, and about the greater or less degrees of guilt belonging to each of them, can have only a historical value. England has made the cause of our enemies her own, and so she also shall be made to feel how Germany defends herself against her enemies." Full Text of von Jagow's First Reply [Copyrighted] _Herr von Jagow's first reply to Prince Lichnowsky, which was printed in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung March 23, 1918, follows:_ "So far as it is possible, in general, I shall refrain from taking up the statements concerning the policy obtaining before my administration of the Foreign Office. "I should like to make the following remarks about the individual points in the article: