Several months after my dismissal in the summer of 1918 I spoke in the Herrenhaus on foreign policy, and warned everyone present against trying to undermine the Quadruple Alliance. When I declared that "honour, duty to the Alliance, and the call for self-preservation compel us to fight by the side of Germany," I was misunderstood. It did not seem as though the public realised that the moment the Entente thought the Quadruple Alliance was about to break up, from that moment our cause was lost. Had the public no knowledge of the London agreement? Did they not know that a separate peace would hand us over totally defenceless to those cruel conditions? Did they not realise that the German army was the shield that afforded us the last and only possibility of escaping the fate of being broken up? My successor steered the same course as I had done, doubtless from the same reasons of honour and the call for self-preservation. I have no particulars as to what occurred in the summer of 1918. Afterwards events followed in rapid succession. First came our terrible defeat in Italy, then the Entente break-through on the Western front, and finally the Bulgarian secession, which had gradually been approaching since the summer of 1917. 3 As is the case in all countries, among the Entente during the war there were many and varied currents of thought. When Clemenceau came into office the definite destruction of Germany was the dominant war aim. To those who neither see nor hear the secret information which a Foreign Minister naturally has at his disposal, it may appear as though the Entente, in the question of crushing Germany's military strength, had sometimes been ready to make concessions. I think that this may have been the case in the spring of 1917, but not later, when any such hope was deceptive. Lansdowne in particular spoke and wrote in a somewhat friendly tone, but Lloyd George was the determining influence in England. When sounding England on different occasions, I endeavoured to discover by what means the dissolution of the military power in Germany was to be or could be guaranteed--and I invariably came to an _impasse_. It was never explained how England intended to carry out the proposal. The truth is that there is no way of disarming a strong and determined people except by defeating them, but such an aim was not to be openly admitted to us in the preliminary dealings. The delegates could not suggest any suitable mode of discussion, and no other proposals could lead to a decision. Lansdowne, and perhaps Asquith as well, would have been content with a parliamentary regime which would have deprived the Emperor of power and given it to the Reichstag. Not so Lloyd George; at least, not later. The English Prime Minister's well-known speech, "A disarmament treaty with Germany would be a treaty between a fox and many geese," conveyed what he really thought.