of getting in touch with the Entente independently in order to secure our special interests. I advised that he should give a declaration to the effect that the Monarchy would be prepared, after the conclusion of peace, to abandon the old alliance and to guarantee the protection of the new status quo provided this means of procedure on the part of the Monarchy would be compensated by the hope of bearable conditions. I received the assurance that, in case anyone who was commissioned to undertake this matter was furnished with suitable authority on the part of our monarch, he would be received. Unfortunately, however, nothing was done in this direction.
When I returned, the Hungarian political crisis had not yet been solved. I saw, just as I had done before my departure, three possibilities of extricating ourselves from the crisis. One possibility would have been to put Tisza into power, who would then have had to re-institute order and commence the battle against those elements which Clemenceau had opposed in France. This solution, however, would not have been a happy one in my opinion, because it would have led immediately to revolution and it would have rendered peace impossible, because the Entente would have regarded this as the victory of the belligerent reaction. I gathered from all sides in Switzerland that Tisza was to the Entente what a red rag was to a bull, and that, together with Ludendorff—quite unjustly—he was made responsible for the war. In other words, it would have been impossible for him to negotiate on
