Your Majesty will remember that Admiral Holtzendorff, when last in Vienna, told us positively that the unrestricted U-boat warfare would bring England to her knees within six months. Your Majesty will also remember how we combated the prediction and declared that, though we did not doubt the U-boat campaign would seriously affect England, yet the looked-for success would be discounted by the anticipated entry of America into the war. It is now two and a half months (almost half the time stated) since the U-boat warfare started, and all the information that we get from England is to the effect that the downfall of this, our most powerful and most dangerous adversary, is not to be thought of. If, in, spite of many scruples, Your Majesty yielded to Germany's wish and consented to allow the Austro-Hungarian Navy to take part in the U-boat warfare, it was not because we were converted by the German arguments, but because Your Majesty deemed it to be absolutely necessary to act with Germany in loyal concert in all quarters and because we were firmly persuaded that Germany, unfortunately, would never desist from her resolve to begin the unrestricted U-boat warfare. To-day, however, in Germany the most enthusiastic advocates of the U-boat warfare are beginning to see that this means to victory will not be decisive, and I trust that the mistaken idea that England within a few months will be forced to sue for peace will lose ground in Berlin too. Nothing is more dangerous in politics than to believe the things one wishes to believe; nothing is more fatal than the principle not to wish to see the truth and to fall a prey to Utopian illusions from which sooner or later a terrible awakening will follow. England, the motive power in the war, will not be compelled to lay down her arms in a few months' time, but perhaps--and here I concede a limited success to the U-boat scheme--perhaps England in a few months will ask herself whether it is wise and sensible to continue this war _a l'outrance_, or whether it would not be more statesmanlike to set foot upon the golden bridges the Central Powers must build for her, and then the moment will have come for great and painful sacrifices on the part of the Central Powers. Your Majesty has rejected the repeated attempts of our enemies to separate us from our Allies, in which step I took the responsibility because Your Majesty is incapable of any dishonourable action. But at the same time, Your Majesty instructed me to notify the statesmen of the German Empire that our strength is at an end, and that after the close of the summer Germany must not reckon on us any longer. I carried out these commands and the German statesmen left me in no doubt that for Germany, too, another winter campaign would be impossible. In this one sentence may be summed up all that I have to say: