To return, therefore, to the plan developed above:  a separate peace that would have contained an order for our troops on the Eastern front to lay down their arms or to march back would immediately have led to conflict at the front.  Following on the violent opposition that such an order would naturally have aroused in the German leaders, orders from Vienna and counter-orders from Berlin would have led to a state of complete disorganisation, even to anarchy.  Humanly speaking, it was out of the question to look for a peaceful and bloodless unravelment at the front.  I state this in order to explain my firm conviction that the idea that such a separating of the two armies could have been carried out in mutual agreement is based on utterly erroneous premises, and also to prove that we have here the first factor showing that we would not have ended the war by a separate peace, but would, on the contrary, have been entangled in a new one.

But what would have been enacted at the front would also, and in aggravated fashion, have been repeated throughout the entire country:  a civil war would have been inevitable.

I must here explain a second misunderstanding, resulting also from my speech of December 11, which is due to my statement that “if we came out Germany could not carry on the war.”  I admit that this statement is not clearly expressed, and was interpreted as though I had intended to say that if we came out the immediate collapse of Germany was a foregone conclusion.  I did not intend to say that, nor did I say or mean it.  I meant to say that our secession from Germany would render impossible a victorious ending of the war, or even a lasting successful continuance of the war; that Germany through this would be faced by the alternative of either submitting to the dictates of the Entente or of bringing up her supremest fighting powers and suppressing the Monarchy, preparing for her the same fate as Roumania met with.  I meant to say that Austria-Hungary, if she allowed the Entente troops to enter, would prove such a terrible danger to Germany that she would be compelled to use every means to forestall us and paralyse the move.  Whoever imagines that the German military leaders would not have seized the latter eventuality knows them but badly, and has a poor opinion of their spirit.  In order to be able to form an objective judgment of this train of thought one should be able to enter into the spirit of the situation.  In April, 1916, when I sent in my resignation for other reasons, Germany’s confidence in victory was stronger than ever.  The Eastern front was free:  Russia and Roumania were out of action.  The troops were bound westward, and no one who knew the situation as it was then can repudiate my assertion that the German military leaders believed themselves then to be nearer than ever to a victory peace; that they were persuaded they would take both Paris and Calais and force the Entente to its knees.  It is out of the question that at such a moment and under such conditions they could have replied to the falling away of Austria-Hungary otherwise than by violence.