 Baron Raffaele Guariglia, the Italian ambassador to Spain, contacted British diplomats to begin the negotiations.Badoglio went about the negotiations in a halfhearted way while allowing a massive number of German forces to enter Italy.The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that Badoglio as prime minister "...did almost everything as stupidly and slowly as possible", as he dragged out the secret peace talks going on in Lisbon and Tangier, being unwilling to accept the Allied demand for unconditional surrender.