The question then became a sore point between the Emperor and myself.  He did not give his permission for further negotiations, but I continued them notwithstanding.  The Emperor knew of it, but did not make further allusion to the matter.  The vast claims put forward by the Germans made the negotiations extremely difficult, and with long intervals and at a very slow pace they dragged on until I left office.

Afterwards the Emperor went with Burian to the German Headquarters.  Following that, the Salzburg negotiations were proceeded with and, apparently, at greater speed.

CHAPTER X

BREST-LITOVSK

1

In the summer of 1917 we received information which seemed to suggest a likelihood of realising the contemplated peace with Russia.  A report dated June 13, 1917, which came to me from a neutral country, ran as follows: 

  The Russian Press, bourgeois and socialistic, reveals the
  following state of affairs: 

At the front and at home bitter differences of opinion are rife as to the offensive against the Central Powers demanded by the Allies and now also energetically advocated by Kerenski in speeches throughout the country.  The Bolsheviks, as also the Socialists under the leadership of Lenin, with their Press, are taking a definite stand against any such offensive.  But a great part of the Mensheviks as well, i.e. Tscheidse’s party, to which the present Ministers Tseretelli and Skobeleff belong, is likewise opposed to the offensive, and the lack of unanimity on this question is threatening the unity of the party, which has only been maintained with difficulty up to now.  A section of the Mensheviks, styled Internationalists from their trying to re-establish the old Internationale, also called Zimmerwalder or Kienthaler, and led by Trotski, or, more properly, Bronstein, who has returned from America, with Larin, Martow, Martynoz, etc., returned from Switzerland, are on this point, as with regard to the entry of Menshevik Social Democrats into the Provisional Government, decidedly opposed to the majority of the party.  And for this reason Leo Deutsch, one of the founders of the Marxian Social Democracy, has publicly withdrawn from the party, as being too little patriotic for his views and not insisting on final victory.  He is, with Georgei Plechanow, one of the chief supporters of the Russian “Social Patriots,” which group is termed, after their Press organ, the “Echinstvo” group, but is of no importance either as regards numbers or influence.  Thus it comes about that the official organ of the Mensheviks, the Rabocaja Gazeta, is forced to take up an intermediate position, and publishes, for instance, frequent articles against the offensive.

There is then the Social Revolutionary party, represented in the Cabinet by the Minister of Agriculture, Tschernow.  This is, perhaps,