Max Montgelas

The grandson of Maximilian von Montgelas, he joined the army in 1879, served in the Boxer Expedition and was military attaché in Peking from 1901 to 1902.

In October 1918 he also reported to a British agent that: "The military situation is desperate, if not hopeless, but it is nothing compared to the interior condition due to the rapid spread of Bolshevism.

He helped to draft the German answer to what they saw as charges of war guilt within the Versailles treaty, and was one of the four signatories to the Memorandum, presented in May 1919, in reply to the Western Allies.

Later, in the absence of the other members of the German Commission, he was jointly responsible, with Delbruck, for a further Memorandum replying to the Allied Note of 16 June.

[3] He subsequently wrote his controversial book The Case for the Central Powers: An Impeachment of the Versailles Verdict, published in London by George, Allen & Unwin Ltd., in 1925.