The next winter, and the summer of 1916, likewise, with their fighting on all fronts, the terrible battle of the Somme, and the brilliant Rumanian autumn and winter campaign, took me to all sorts of places on the western and eastern fronts, even as far as Nisch--where the first memorable meeting with the Bulgarian Tsar took place--and to Orsova, so that I had no opportunity to take up the matter of franchise reform with the care that its importance demanded. In the spring of 1917 I asked the Chancellor to draw up an announcement of the reform, to be made to the nation at Easter, since I assumed that the Ministers had long since discussed it. The Chancellor drew up the text of the proclamation at Hamburg, in agreement with the chief of the Cabinet and myself; he proposed that the method of voting be left open for the time being, since he was not yet quite sure about this. The Easter proclamation appeared; it was based, like previous treatments of the matter, on the idea that the reform was not to be introduced until after the conclusion of peace, because most of the voters were away facing the enemy. Party and press did what they could to postpone the accomplishment of my purpose by recriminations and strife, by bringing up the question of the Prussian Reichstag franchise, and by the demand for the introduction of the franchise bill while the war was still in progress. Thus the question embarked upon its well-known and not very pleasant course, which dragged itself out on account of the interminable negotiations in the Landtag. It was not until after the retirement of Herr von Bethmann that I learned through Loebell that the memorial of 1915 had never been submitted to the Ministers, but had lain untouched for a year and a half in a desk drawer; that the Chancellor, influenced by the desires expressed in the country, had dropped the various systems proposed and concentrated upon the general (Reichstag) franchise, of the eventual introduction of which he was, doubtless, inwardly convinced. In any event, the original basic idea was thoroughly bungled by Bethmann's dilatoriness and the strife among the parties. What I wanted was to present a gift of honor, of my own free will, on its triumphal return home, to my victorious army, to my "Nation in Arms," my brave Prussians, with whom I had stood before the enemy. CHANCELLOR'S DIPLOMATIC POWER