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34 they may help you in the immediate task for which you have been made responsible.

"If the two alternative policies of dealing with the Dual Monarchy set forth in your paper were mutually exclusive, and if they involved distinct and even opposite methods of propaganda, our position would be even more difficult than it is. For what we can do with the Austrian Empire does not wholly depend upon our wishes, but upon the success of our arms and the views of our Allies, and, as these elements in our calculations cannot be estimated with certainty, we should inevitably remain in doubt as to which of the two mutually exclusive methods of propaganda it would be judicious to adopt.

"Fortunately, however, our position is not quite so embarrassing. As you point out with unanswerable force, everything which encourages the anti-German elements in the Hapsburg dominions really helps to compel the Emperor and the Court to a separate peace, and also diminishes the efficiency of Austria-Hungary as a member of the Middle-Europe combination. The Emperor, by these means, might be induced, or compelled, fundamentally to modify the constitution of his own State. If he refused to lend himself to such a policy, the