What you demand is technically impossible.  The Note was not easy to compile.  I had to alter it entirely as time went on; His Majesty then wished to see it, made some alterations and sanctioned it.  Meanwhile Penfield[7] importuned me and telegraphed even a week ago to America to reassure his people; the Germans, too, had to be won over for that particular passage.

  You know how ready I am to discuss important matters with you, but
  ultra posse nemo tenetur—­it was physically impossible to upset
  everything again and to expect His Majesty to alter his views.

  In true friendship, your

  CZERNIN.

I thereupon, on March 14, received the following answer from Tisza: 

DEAR FRIEND,—­I also note with genuine pleasure the success of your American aide-memoire (meaning thereby America’s resolve not to break off relations with us).  But it does not alter my opinion that it was a pity to admit that a pledge had been given.  It may be requited at a later stage of the controversy, and it would have been easy not to broach the subject for the moment.

  Do you think me very obstinate?  I have not suppressed the final
  word in our retrospective controversy so that you should not think
  me better than I am.

  Au revoir, in true friendship, your

  TISZA.

Tisza was strongly opposed to the U-boat warfare, and only tolerated it from reasons of vis major, because we could not prevent the German military leaders from adopting the measure, and because he, and I too, were convinced that “not joining in” would have been of no advantage to us.

Not until very much later—­in fact, not until after the war—­did I learn from a reliable source that Germany, with an incomprehensible misunderstanding of the situation, had restricted the building of more U-boats during the war.  The Secretary of State, Capelle, was approached by competent naval technical experts, who told him that, by stopping the building of all other vessels, a fivefold number of U-boats could be built.  Capelle rejected the proposal on the pretext “that nobody would know what to do with so many U-boats when the war was at an end.”  Germany had, as mentioned, 100 submarines; had she possessed 500, she might have achieved her aims.

I only heard this in the winter of 1918, but it was from a source from which I invariably gleaned correct information.

Seldom has any military action called forth such indignation as the sinking, without warning, of enemy ships.  And yet the observer who judges from an objective point of view must admit that the waging war on women and children was not begun by us, but by our enemies when they enforced the blockade.  Millions have perished in the domains of the Central Powers through the blockade, and chiefly the poorest and weakest people—­the greater part women and children—­were