At my first audience, too, we conversed at great length on Roumania and on the question whether the war with Bucharest could have been averted or not.

The Emperor was then still under the influence of our first peace offer so curtly rejected by the Entente.  At the German Headquarters at Pless, where I arrived a few days later, I found the prevailing atmosphere largely influenced by the Entente’s answer.  Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who were apparently opposed to Burian’s demarche for peace, merely remarked to me that a definite victory presented a possibility of ending the war, and the Emperor William said that he had offered his hand in peace but that the Entente had given him a slap in the face, and there was nothing for it now but war to the uttermost.

It was at this time that the question of the unrestricted U-boat warfare began to be mooted.  At first it was the German Navy only, and Tirpitz in particular, who untiringly advocated the plan.  Hohenlohe,[5] who, thanks to his excellent connections, was always very well informed, wrote, several weeks before the fateful decision was taken, that the German Navy was determined and bent on that aim.  Bethmann and Zimmermann were both decidedly against it.  It was entirely in keeping with the prudent wisdom of the former not to risk such experiments; Bethmann was an absolutely dependable, honourable and capable partner, but the unbounded growth of the military autocracy must be imputed to his natural tendency to conciliate.  He was powerless against Ludendorff and little by little was turned aside by him.  My first visit to Berlin afforded me the opportunity of thoroughly discussing the U-boat question with the Imperial Chancellor, and we were quite agreed in our disapproval of that method of warfare.  At all events, Bethmann pointed out that such essentially military matters should in the first instance be left to military decision, as they alone were able to form a correct estimate of the result, and these reflections made me fear from the very first that all reasonable political scruples would be upset by military arguments.  On this my first visit to Berlin, when this question naturally was the dominating one, the Chancellor explained to me how difficult his position was, because the military leaders, both on land and at sea, declared that if the unrestricted U-boat warfare were not carried out they would not be able to guarantee the Western front.  They thus brought an iron pressure to bear on him, for how could he, the Chancellor, undertake to guarantee that the Western front could hold out?  As a matter of fact, the danger of introducing the unrestricted U-boat campaign became greater and greater, and the reports sent by Hohenlohe left no doubt as to the further development of affairs in Berlin.

On January 12 he reported as follows: 

  The question of the extension of the U-boat warfare, as Your
  Excellency is aware from the last discussions in Berlin, becomes
  daily more acute.