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Updated: June 26, 2025
I have never discussed this phase with Berchtold, but the material placed at my disposal leaves no doubt that he felt bound to inquire into this side of the question and then leave the decision to the Emperor Francis Joseph. On the following day, July 31, therefore, Tschirsky, at the Ballplatz, communicated the contents of a telegram from King George to Prince Henry of Prussia. It ran as follows:
No one spoke. The silence began to be even a little uncomfortable. It was broken by my friend Rapley, who is in wholesale hardware and who has all the intellectual bravery that goes with it. He asked the Authority straight out the question that we all wanted to put. "Just what do you mean by the Ballplatz? What is the Ballplatz?" The Authority smiled an engaging smile.
I said this to Ludendorff when he called on me at the Ballplatz in the summer of 1917, but it made not the slightest impression on him. The démarche for peace made by the Pope and our reply have been published in the European Press. We accepted the noble proposals made by the Holy Father. I have therefore nothing to add on that matter.
"Ah!" said Rapley. "Indeed, as everybody knows, the whole relationship of the Ballplatz with the Nevski Prospekt has emanated from the Wilhelmstrasse." This was a thing which personally I had not known. But I said nothing. Neither did the other men. They continued smoking, looking as innocent as they could. "Don't misunderstand me," said the Authority, "when I speak of the Nevski Prospekt.
But this much must be stated: that Revertera in the negotiations proved himself to be an equally correct as efficient agent who acted exactly according to the instructions he received from the Ballplatz. Our various attempts to take up the threads of peace when emanating from the Ballplatz were always intended for our entire group of Powers.
As previously stated, Majorescu, as well as Marghiloman, would only have given his consent to co-operation if Roumania had been given a slice of the Hungarian state. Thanks to the attitude of absolute refusal observed at the Ballplatz, the territory in question was never definitely decided on, but the idea probably was Transylvania and a portion of the Bukovina.
They too awaited the completion of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin.
The Roumanians attempted several times to make the maintenance of their neutrality contingent on territorial concessions. I was always opposed to this, and at the Ballplatz they were of the same opinion. The Roumanians would have appropriated these concessions and simply attacked us later to obtain more.
"Precisely," he said, "I see your drift exactly. You say what is the Ballplatz? I reply quite frankly that it is almost impossible to answer. Probably one could best define it as the driving power behind the Ausgleich." "I see," said Rapley. "Though the plain fact is that ever since the Herzegovinian embroglio the Ballplatz is little more than a counterpoise to the Wilhelmstrasse."
It was feared probably at the Ballplatz that any communication to the Powers would result in their intervention in the form of a new conference of ambassadors, and that stagnation would ensue. But in the year 1914 the case was very different from former days before the ultimatum right was so undoubtedly on our side.
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