fident of winning than at any
time in the three months I have been here. This confidence must not be
confused with cocksureness; it is rather the "looking forward with quiet
confidence to ultimate victory," as General von Heeringen phrased it.
Even more important is the corollary that, while the Germans have
apparently never had any doubt that they would win out in the end, this
"ultimate victory" does not seem so far off to them today as it did
three months ago.

To one who has had an opportunity of personally sounding the
undercurrents of German public opinion, this quiet optimism that has
become noticeable only in the past few weeks (totally different in
character from the enthusiasm that followed the declaration of war) has
seemed particularly significant. Three months ago I was incessantly
asked by Germans "how the situation looked to an American," and "how
long I thought the war would last." When left to answer their own
question, they almost invariably remarked: "It may last a long while
yet." Today neutral opinion is no longer anxiously or even eagerly
sought. The temporary need for this sort of moral support seems to have
passed, and there are many indications that the well-informed layman
expects 1915 to see the wind-up of the war, while I have talked with not
a few professional men who have expressed the opinion that the war will
be over by Summer--except against England.

This unanimous exception is significant because it indicates that to the
German mind the war with Russia and France is, in prize-ring parlance, a
twenty-round affair, which can and will be won on points, whereas with
England it is a championship fight to a finish, to be settled only by a
knockout. The idea is that Russia will be eliminated as a serious factor
by late Spring at the latest, and then, Westward Ho! when France will
not prolong the agony unduly, but will seize the first psychological
moment that offers peace with honor, leaving Germany free to fight it
out with the real enemy, England, though as to how, when, and where the
end will come, there is less certainty and agreement. Some think that
the knockout will be delivered in the shadow of the Pyramids; others,
and probably the majority, believe that the winning blow must and will
be delivered on English soil itself.

Time here is no factor, for the war against England is taking on
increasingly an almost religious character; from the German point of
view, it will soon be, not