, is this, that the Allied
Governments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and
aggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and
utter ruin. This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly
united. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing
argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. I
find that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has
done right or wrong in the past--and I have sometimes criticized my
country very bitterly--I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at
the foot of some victorious foreign nation. Neither will any German who
matters. Very few people would respect a German who did. But the case
for the Allies is that this great argument by which, and by which alone,
the German Imperial Government keeps its grip upon the German people at
the present time, and keeps them facing their enemies, is untrue. The
Allies declare that they do not want to destroy the German people, they
do not want to cripple the German people; they want merely to see
certain gaping wounds inflicted by Germany repaired, and beyond that
reasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured, completely
assured, absolutely assured, against any further aggressions on the
part of Germany.

Is that true? Our leaders say so, and we believe them. We would not
support them if we did not. And if it is true, have the statesmen of the
Allies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the German
people as possible? That is one of the supreme questions of the present
time. We cannot too earnestly examine it. Because in the answer to it
lies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and
western front, so many ships sunk, so much property destroyed, so much
human energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction, and why to-morrow
and the next day and the day after--through many months yet,
perhaps--the same killing and destroying must still go on.

In many respects this war has been an amazing display of human
inadaptability. The military history of the war has still to be written,
the grim story of machinery misunderstood, improvements resisted,
antiquated methods persisted in; but the broad facts are already before
the public mind. After three years of war the air offensive, the only
possible decisive blow, is still merely talked of. Not once nor twice
only have the Western Allies had victory within their