of the nations within her borders to her rule was an elemental one, and her existence was increasingly threatened as the ideas associated with democracy and racial self-determination became more and more the driving forces of the contest. Then, too, I considered that this war, the greatest in history, must inevitably produce some vast and decisive results, or, if untenable compromises were made, their outcome would be internal upheavals after the war was over. For these reasons I felt convinced that Austria-Hungary could not survive, and that our cause would consequently be victorious.
In all the anxiety which I felt during these efforts to bring about a separate peace, when we were struggling against the intrigues of the Austrophiles, against the endeavours of reactionaries, against alarmists and opportunists, or against the scruples of persons who were conscientious enough, but who had an imperfect conception of the points at issue, the ideas which I have outlined above formed a great encouragement and hope to me, and they were confirmed by my daily experience during the war, as well as by the general course of the war and its results. It was my belief that the truth would prevail, but I did not expect it to prevail unaided. Accordingly, the struggle against all arguments in favour of a separate peace formed the basis of our work in 1917. I was aware that we could not reckon upon any sentimentality towards the oppressed nations on the part of Allied politicians if there was any serious question of peace with Vienna. In so terrible a war there was far too great a tendency to protect immediate interests, whether real or only apparent, and regardless of public declarations or promises. As I have said, I do not reproach the Allied politicians for this. The question was not merely a moral one. It involved a proper understanding of what any particular policy would lead to, as far as the Allied States were concerned, and specially an understanding of our argument that, in the end, it would be better for the Allies and Europe in general if the Habsburg Empire were to disappear.
Any compromise with Vienna in the summer of 1917 would have been an unmitigated disaster to us. By that time we had a political and military movement organized on a large scale, and as its leaders we had committed hundreds of thousands of our people and their families to a life-and-death struggle.
