"When our enemies know that no sacrifices will achieve the rupture of the German front, then they will be ready for a peace which will make the future of our country safe for the broad masses of our people. "At the front, October 24th, 10 P.M." This proclamation which was signed by Field Marshal Von Hindenburg was later signed by Ludendorff. It resulted in the Kaiser's immediate orders for a special conference at which both of these officials were dismissed from the Imperial German army. Von Tirpitz in his Memoirs laid stress on the effect of the Wilson submarine notes. Ludendorff declares in his book that the "Wilson propaganda" that found root in Berlin and finally grew there eventually convinced the German people that it was not they themselves, but the Government and militarism that the United States was warring against. This was the seed of dissension that ruined German morale at home. Tirpitz declared that the beginning of the end came when in answer to the President's Sussex note, "We showed the world that we were going down before America." Probably the most enlightening chapter of either book is that containing Tirpitz's contention that the influence of the Wilson submarine notes resulted in Japan's stronger and more active alliance with the Allies. In this connection Von Tirpitz says:     Only the transmitting to Germany of the threatening notes of President     Wilson, when he inveighed against my submarine campaign during the     latter stages of the war, prevented Japan from coming to us in a great     Germano-Japanese alliance, which would have ended the war at once. The overtures of the Pope, in August, 1917, were rejected and again the attention of the world was arrested by the masterly leadership of the American President. On August 16, 1917, I addressed the following letter to the President with reference to the offers of peace made by His Holiness Pope Benedict XV: The White House, Washington, 16 August, 1917. DEAR GOVERNOR: I do not believe that the proposals the Pope has submitted should lead us into a statement as to the terms of peace beyond that which the President has already given expression to in his address in the Senate and in his Russian note. In these two documents are discussed the fundamentals of international peace. Some of these fundamentals the Pope recognizes in his statement to the belligerents. To go beyond a discussion of these now might lead to a conflict of opinion even among our own allies (for instance, France hopes for the return of Alsace Lorraine; Russia, for Constantinople, etc.).