n destruction. The Prussian
Government was supposed to be the perfect type of a stable
government. Its work of five hundred years has been destroyed in three
years. The Germans had sold their birthright to the Hohenzollern for a
mess of pottage. They have lost their birthright, but they have not
secured the pottage. The German people had entered into tacit
contract. The rulers have broken the contract. The German people were
ready to surrender their personal liberty for the advantages which the
contract gave them. They preferred the security of despotism to the
risks of liberty. But the German people have discovered that the
security was illusory, that the advantages were negative, and that the
risks of despotism are infinitely greater than the perils of liberty.

IV.

But, even granting that the prestige and glamour of the Hohenzollern
Monarchy are dispelled, we shall be told that it does not necessarily
follow that a revolution would have any chances of success. For it may
still be objected that a revolution is impossible under modern
conditions of warfare, that under those conditions all the advantages
are with the Government and are not with the people, that it has
become very much easier to-day than in a previous generation to stamp
out a rebellion, and that the risks are very much greater.

I believe that argument to be entirely fallacious. I do not believe
that the chances are with the Government. I believe that they are all
the other way. Modern conditions are more favourable to the prospects
of a popular rising than they were, say, in 1789, in 1848, or in
1871. In olden days armies did not side with the people. They were
non-national. They were professional. They were made up of
mercenaries. The Swiss mercenaries allowed themselves to be massacred
in defence of the monarchy. The Hessian mercenaries allowed themselves
to be massacred in the service of the Hanoverian Kings. Nor had the
people any military training. To-day the armies are national armies.
They are the people themselves. They have received a military
training. They have imbibed the military spirit. If only the people
can be gained over to the revolution, three-fourths of the battle is
won.

In this connection it is essential that we should clearly understand
the fundamental differences between a foreign war and a civil war. A
foreign war is a trial of strength between one nation in arms and
another nation in arms. A rebellion is a trial of st