I tried at least to do what
I could and I made an attempt to send Herr Albert, who was completely
in accord with me, to Berlin on the submarine _Deutschland_. The
captain of the _Deutschland_, however, had scruples against carrying
passengers, and Herr Albert's voyage had therefore to be given up.
After my experience of the journeys of Herren Meyer Gerhardt and
Dernburg, I certainly do not think that Herr Albert would have done
very much in Berlin. Even I could hardly have hindered the opening
of the unrestricted submarine campaign where Herr von Jagow, Herr
von Kuehlmann and others had failed, and after all, that was the
main point.

Mr. Wilson's intention of bringing about peace had been reported
to me so definitely and so often that I took it for granted that
the President would carry through his plan in spite of our peace
offer. As I had received no instructions to the contrary, I held
to my previous interpretation of the situation, and assumed that,
although it was true that we had ourselves made a peace offer because
Wilson's action was so long in coming, we should nevertheless still
be glad to avail ourselves of the President's help. In my opinion,
this was the only interpretation that could be put on the Foreign
Office telegram number 128, given above. The President himself,
as Colonel House told me, was very disappointed when he received
the news of our peace offer. Colonel House told me that he would
naturally have liked to take the first step himself. Apart from
this, he had always warned us against mentioning peace, because
this would be interpreted by the Entente as weakness. He therefore
regarded our peace offer as an obstacle to action on his part,
as it was bound to diminish the enemy's readiness to enter into
negotiations. On the other hand, the step of the Imperial Government
exerted a favorable influence on American public opinion, and this
influence would have been even more favorable if the offer had been
made less in the tone of a victor. The attitude of American public
opinion, and the fear lest peace negotiations might be opened without
his co-operation, must have been the chief reasons that influenced
Mr. Wilson publicly to support our peace offer. In connection with
this I sent the following information to Berlin:

CIPHER TELEGRAM

"Washington, 16th December, 1916.

"Lansing tells me the following statement, which I could not send
by wireless to-day, comes from Wilson personally.