At present no decided line of action can be specified for such a proceeding. Your Excellency was good enough to ask me whether the reinstatement of the _status quo_ would be a suitable basis on which to start negotiations. My standpoint in this matter is as follows: I have already stated in the Reichstag that Germany is not striving for any great changes in power after the war, and is ready to negotiate provided the enemy does not demand the cession of any German territory; with such a conception of the term "reinstatement of the _status quo_," that form would be a very suitable basis for negotiations. This would not exclude the desired possibility of retaining the present frontiers, and by negotiating bring former enemy economic territory into close economic and military conjunction with Germany--this would refer to Courland, Lithuania and Poland--and thus secure Germany's frontiers and give a guarantee for her vital needs on the continent and overseas. Germany is ready to evacuate the occupied French territory, but must reserve to herself the right, _by means of the peace negotiations, to the economic exploitation of the territory of Longwy and Briey_, if not through direct incorporation, by a legal grant to exploit. We are not in a position to cede to France any noteworthy districts in Alsace-Lorraine. I should wish to have a free hand in the negotiations in the matter of _connecting Belgium with Germany in a military and economic sense_. The terms that I read out, taken from notes at the Kreuznach negotiations--the military control of Belgium until the conclusion of a defensive and offensive Alliance with Germany, the acquisition of Liege (or a long-term rental thereof)--were the maximum claims of the Supreme Military and Naval Command. The Supreme Military Command agrees with me that these terms or similar ones can only be secured if peace can be enforced on England. But we are of opinion that a vast amount of economic and military influence must be brought to bear in Belgium in the matter of the negotiations and would perhaps not meet with much resistance, because Belgium, from economic distress, will come to see that her being joined to Germany is the best guarantee for a prosperous future.