1916 was not designed to blame the civilian politicians but only the military: according to Friedrich Katz, Jagow was the principal supporter of a failed plan designed to involve the United States and Mexico in a war. At the time the Mexican Revolution had created rising tensions between both countries. As a result, Jagow expected that the United States would not enter World War I if it was militarily involved with Mexico. Nonetheless Jagow was responsible for the Longwiy-Breiy Plan to occupy the plateau that overlooked the city of Verdun made possible by Baron Romberg's visit to Berlin. But it was merely a pretext for a new extension of German strategy deeper into France proper. Jagow remained steadfastly anti-Russian, to the extent he sacked staff to get a putative alliance with Ushida, the Japanese ambassador. His meddling with Ushida in St Petersburg got him 'discarded' too for attempting a separate peace with Russia on Germany's behalf; he even confessedly admitted on 17 May 1916 that the "whole swindle ceases to matter". Any diplomatic rapprochement was broken as it was unplanned, when Russia launched the Brusilov Offensive that summer. Jagow's policy had woefully failed: he was scheming to introduce a Grand Duchy of Poland as Germany conspired to divide the country in half adopted Falkenhayn's policy idea of a Germano-Polish Kingdom was declared on 5 November 1916; and a Flamenpolitik for the Poles, the Klub des polnischen Staatswesens. He recognised that Austria's defeat had collapsed the front to Germany's detriment. but Germany ignored Jagow's former policy of a 'preventive war' now discredited; for he had to do something that "assures our future". The new Ludendorff alternative would make Poland "also completely dependent on her economically". Jagow retired in November 1916. A quiet, unassuming and scholarly man, he was one of the worst speakers in the Reichstag. James W. Gerard, United States ambassador to Germany at the time, in his book My Four Years in Germany, said Jagow was forced out of office by an agitation against him on account of his lack of force in defending government policy in the Reichstag. Jagow wrote a defence of German policy entitled Ursachen und Ausbruch des Weltkrieges (“Causes and the outbreak of the World War”), published in 1919. He died in 1935. Honours Knight Grand cross in the Order of Leopold, 1913. Notes References External links 1863 births 1935 deaths Politicians from Berlin German