On October 28, 1917, the five-party talks resumed. Having obtained authorization from home, Sazonov let out a sigh of relief. What he feared most was that the authorities back home would insist on holding to their original bottom line; if that happened, these negotiations could not go on.
Austro-Hungarian Prime Minister Leopold von Berchtold now looked positively high-spirited, with not the slightest appearance of a defeated nation. No—at present, the Austro-Hungarian Empire could not yet be considered defeated at most, it had only lost half the war!
Clearly, having won British and French support, they were even more confident when facing the Russians. If the Russian Empire had not indeed made enormous contributions in this world war, and if the Tsarist government had not persisted in the war even after domestic unrest erupted, perhaps they would not have had to pay even this indemnity.
Of course, that was plainly impossible. The Entente could not possibly gorge itself so uglily. They were allies, after all; even if they ate the meat themselves, they had to leave the Russians a bowl of broth!
As soon as the meeting began, Sazonov once again raised his demand. "Considering the Austro-Hungarian Empire's ability to repay, after careful study, the Tsarist government has decided to agree to reduce the amount of reparations. We demand that the Austro-Hungarian Empire pay 1.5 billion pounds in war reparations, to be paid off over thirty years, with annual payments of principal and interest totaling 125 million pounds."
Naturally, Leopold von Berchtold was dissatisfied. Paying the French that 430 million pounds owed by the Bulgarians included half as interest-free loans, and the annual interest did not even exceed ten million pounds. Yet under the Russians' demands, interest payments alone would amount to seventy-five million pounds per year. How could that be