consequences of such an event. We would have been exposed to the danger of the army becoming a devastating mob under pressure of the enemy barrage, and that they would spread destruction right and left throughout the country. In Austria I also found a Government that had fallen (Hussarek), and a chosen successor (Lammasch), who wanted to decentralize gradually and in a legal manner the administration which had been centralized hitherto. His labour, however, was rendered very difficult by the prevalent passion and by the mutual distrust and conflict which increased daily between German nationalism and Slavophile sentiment. I was received suspiciously in Vienna because I was a Hungarian. The first event during my Ministry was a wire from the Emperor Karl, in which he communicated to his ally the German Kaiser that Austria-Hungary was no longer capable of continuing the fight and was determined to conclude a separate peace, so that the revolution and complete collapse should be avoided (October 26). Thereupon I submitted my petition for a separate peace (October 28) to Wilson and all the rest of the enemy powers.
The calming influence of this measure was decreased because the Government crisis still reigned supreme in Budapest. The excitement was at its height. The demagogues were afraid that they would not succeed in bringing about peace and thereby lose their right to existence, and consequently they prepared all the more for rapid action. The mentality of these people
