o
understand that bargaining between crime and right is no longer
possible. We want a just and a strong peace, protecting the future
against the abominations of the past." Italy joined with her Allies and
declared that a negotiated peace was impossible.

The refusal on the part of the Allies to respond to the Austrian peace
proposal evidently greatly disturbed the German leaders. The continued
German reverses, and the surrender of Bulgaria had taken away all hope.
They were anxious to conclude some kind of peace before meeting
irretrievable disaster. They therefore determined to appoint as
Chancellor of the Empire some statesman who might be represented as a
supporter of an honest peace, and Count von Hertling, whose previous
utterances might put under suspicion any peace move coming from him, was
removed and Prince Maximilian of Baden appointed as his successor on
September 30th.

Prince Maximilian was put forward as a Moderate, in accordance with the
evident purpose of the government to continue peace proposals. He was
the heir apparent to the Grand Ducal throne of Baden, and was the first
man in public life in Germany to declare that the Empire could not
conquer by the sword alone. He did this in an address to the Upper
Chamber in Baden, of which he was President, on December 15, 1917.
"Power alone can never secure our position," he said, "and our sword
alone will never be able to tear down the opposition to us."

At the same time he made an attack upon the ideals set up by President
Wilson. "President Wilson," he continued, "after three years of war
gathers together all the outworn slogans of the Entente of 1914, and
denounces Germany as the disturber of the peace, proclaiming a crusade
for humanity, liberty and the rights of small nations." Then, forgetting
that the United States had entered the war nearly a month after the
abdication of the Czar of Russia, he added: "President Wilson has no
right to speak in the name of democracy and liberty, for he was the
mighty war ally of Russian Czardom, but he had deaf ears when the
Russian democracy appealed to him to allow it to discuss peace
conditions." The Baden address created a great sensation all over
Germany, which was increased when, in an interview in January, he
declared that all ideas of conquest must be abandoned, and that Germany
must serve as a bulwark to prevent the spread of Bolshevism among the
western nations.

There can be no doubt that the appointm