Stronger than anything else in Vienna was the desire for sensation, pleasure, and a gay life.  My friend once saw a piece acted at one of the theatres in Vienna called, I believe, Der Junge Medardus.  The scene is laid during the occupation of Vienna by Napoleon.  Viennese citizens condemned to death for intriguing with the enemy are led away by the French.  In a most thrilling scene weeping women and children bid them farewell.  A vast crowd witnesses the affair.  A boy suddenly rushes in shouting:  “Napoleon is coming.”  The crowd hurries away to see him, and cries of “Long live Napoleon” are heard in the distance.

Such was Vienna a hundred years ago, and it is still the same. Une ville sans ame.

I pass on the criticism without comment.

2

In different circles which justly and unjustly intervened in politics during my time of office, the plan was suggested of driving a wedge between North and South Germany, and converting the latter to the peaceful policy of Vienna in contradistinction to Prussian militarism.

The plan was a faulty one from the very first.  To begin with, as already stated, the most pronounced obstacle to peace was not only the Prussian spirit, but the Entente programme for our disruption, which a closer connection with Bavaria and Saxony would not have altered.  Secondly, Austria-Hungary, obviously falling more and more to pieces, formed no point of attraction for Munich and Dresden, who, though not Prussian, yet were German to the very backbone.  The vague and irresponsible plan of returning to the conditions of the period before 1866 was an anachronism.  Thirdly and chiefly, all experiments were dangerous which might create the impression in the Entente that the Quadruple Alliance was about to be dissolved.  In a policy of that nature executive ability was of supreme importance, and that was exactly what was usually lacking.

The plan was not without good features.  The appointment of the Bavarian Count Hertling to be Imperial Chancellor was not due to Viennese influence, though a source of the greatest pleasure to us, and the fact of making a choice that satisfied Vienna played a great part with the Emperor William.  Two Bavarians, Hertling and Kuehlmann, had taken over the leadership of the German Empire, and they, apart from their great personal qualities, presented a certain natural counter-balance to Prussian hegemony through their Bavarian origin; but only so far as it was still possible in general administration which then was in a disturbed state.  But farther they could not go without causing injury.

Count Hertling and I were on very good terms.  This wise and clear-sighted old man, whose only fault was that he was too old and physically incapable of offering resistance, would have saved Germany, if she possibly could have been saved, in 1917.  In the rushing torrent that whirled her away to her fall, he found no pillar to which he could cling.