His reports were always admirably prepared, brilliant in form, and, hence, impressive and attractive. And in this there was an element of danger. In his opinion there was always but one solution, the one which he proposed! The apparent solidity and thoroughness of his reports and suggestions, the illuminating treatment of the matters reported upon from every angle, the references to experts, to foreign and native statesmen and diplomats, etc., easily led to the impression that solely the Bethmann solution was worthy of consideration. In spite of these thorough preparations, he made mistake after mistake. Thus he had an actual share in our misfortune. When I returned from my Norwegian trip in 1914 he did not place his resignation in my hands, to be sure, but he admitted that his political calculations had gone wrong. Nevertheless, I left him in office, even after his Reichstag speech and the English declaration of war of August 4, 1914, because I considered it most serious to change the highest official in the Empire at the most critical moment in German history. The unanimous attitude of the nation in the face of the challenge from the Entente might have been impaired by such action. Moreover, both the Chancellor and the chief of the Civil Cabinet maintained that they had the working classes behind them. I was loath to deprive the working classes, which behaved in an exemplary manner in 1914, of the statesman whom, I had been told, they trusted. The theory, constantly repeated to me in 1914 by the chief of the Civil Cabinet and the representative of the Foreign Office, that only Bethmann had the support of the working classes, was finally supplemented further by reports to me that the Chancellor enjoyed the confidence in foreign countries which was necessary to the conclusion of peace. Thus it came about that Bethmann always stayed in office, until, finally, the Crown Prince made the well-known investigation among the party leaders which showed that the above-mentioned theory was mistaken. This mistake was made all the clearer to me when I read, at the time of Bethmann's dismissal--to which other factors also contributed--the most unfavorable opinions of him, especially in the Social Democratic and Democratic press. I do not wish to blame Bethmann with these frank remarks, nor to exonerate others; but, when such important matters are discussed, personal considerations must be ignored. I never doubted the nobility of Bethmann's sentiments.