Appendix L 



be." He believed that the Emperor was whole-heartedly in 

 sympathy with his work and he was also supported therein by 

 his clever and forcible consort, the Empress Zita. 



The details of Lammasch's plans for the withdrawal of Aus- 

 tria-Hungary from alliance with Prussia and her reconstruction 

 as a federated state need not be repeated here. In answer to the 

 question as to whether America would be permitted to dictate 

 as to the interior condition of the Austrian Empire, Lammasch 

 replied: "We will not only permit you, we will embrace you. If 

 President Wilson will but make conditions of peace more 

 explicit, so far as we of Austria are concerned, we will accept 

 them. We will then confront Germany with the demand that 

 she make peace accordingly. And Germany dare not refuse. 

 If she refuse, then Bavaria and Wiirttemberg, probably all 

 South Germany, will join us. Thus the refusal of Berlin will 

 result in the instant breaking up of the German Empire. Even 

 if the Emperor failed, his failure would constitute a sacrifice 

 that would be vicarious and thence universally redemptive." 



Though the meetings were secret, spies reported that peace 

 negotiations were in the air. "Count Czernin hurried with his 

 suspicions to Berlin. And Berlin served what was practically 

 an ultimatum on Vienna. Kaiser Karl wavered and then failed. 

 . . . Alas, instead of the end of the war in a moral victory 

 redemptive of the world, Lammasch became the last Prime 

 Minister of the Empire and sorrowfully performed its liquida- 

 tion. 



"No one ever knew him who did not regard him with affec- 

 tion and reverence. I do not know of having previously met a 

 man whom I so instantly revered. ... I knew myself to 

 be indeed in the presence of one of the purest souls, one of the 

 truest seers, one of the altogether noblest and wisest of men yet 

 remaining on the earth. He went out in what was to him the 

 dusk of civilization, the dusk before the deepest night that has 

 ever settled down upon historic humanity." 



C 826 



