ing the old straw of argument, most of
the people of the civilized world are convinced that it is.

That young private I met in the grounds at Charlottenberg, that
wounded man helping with the harvest, that tired hospital director, the
small trader in Hamburg, the sturdy Red Cross woman in the station
at Hanover, the peasants and the workers throughout Germany, kept
unimaginatively at their tasks, do not see the machinery of the throne,
only the man in the photograph who supplies them with a national
imagination. His indefatigable goings and comings and his poses fill
their minds with a personality which typifies the national spirit. Will
this change after the war? But that, too, is not a subject for speculation
here.

Through the war his pose has met the needs of the hour. An emperor
bowed down with the weight of his people's sacrifice, a grey,
determined emperor hastening to honour the victors, covering up
defeats, urging his legions on, himself at the front, never seen by the
general public in the rear; a mysterious figure, not saying much and
that foolish to the Allies but appealing to the Germans, rather
appearing to submerge his own personality in the united patriotism of
the struggle--such is the picture which the throne machinery has
impressed on the German mind. The histrionic gift may be at its best
in creating a saga.

Always the offensive! Germany would keep on striking as long as she
had strength for a blow, whilst making the pretence that she had the
strength for still heavier blows. One wonders, should she gain peace
by her blows, if the Allies would awaken after the treaty was signed to
find how near exhaustion she had been, or that she was so self-
contained in her production of war material that she had only
borrowed from Hans to pay Fritz, who were both Germans. Russia
did not know how' nearly she had Japan beaten until after
Portsmouth. Japan's method was the German method; she learned it
from Germany.

At the end of my journey I was hearing the same din of systematic
optimism in my ears as in the beginning.

"Warsaw, then Paris, then our Zeppelins will finish London," said the
restaurant keeper on the German side of the Dutch frontier; "and our
submarines will settle the British navy before the summer is over. No,
the war will not last a year."

"And is America next on the programme?" I asked.

"No. America is too strong; too far away."

I was guilty of a faint suspicion that he was a dip