God is my witness that I, in order to avoid war, went to the uttermost' limit compatible with responsibility for the security and inviolability of my dear Fatherland.
It is futile to accuse Germany of war guilt. To-day there is no longer any doubt that rot Germany, but the alliance of her foes, prepared the war according to a definite plan, and intentionally caused it.
For the purpose of concealing this, the allied enemies extorted the false "admission of guilt' from Germany in the shameful Peace Treaty and demanded that T be produced before a hostile trtbuna You, my dear Field Marshal, know me too well nob to be aware that no sacrifice for my beloved Fatherland is too great for me. Nevertheless, a tribunal in which the enemy alliance would be at once plaintiff and judge would be not an organ of justice, but an instrument of political arbitrarsness, and would serve only, through the sentence which would inevitably be passed upon me, to justify subsequently the unprecedented peace conditions imposed upon us. Therefore, the enemy's demand naturally had to be rejected by me.
But, in addition, the idea of my being produced before a neu-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.