part of my record. The German was the same beast yesterday that he
is to-day; and it makes a simple-minded, straight-minded man like
me wonder which attitude was the (or is the) attitude of real
conviction. But this doesn't bother me now as a real problem--only
as a speculation. What we call History will, I presume, in time
work this out. But History is often a kind of lie. But never mind
that. The only duty of mankind now is to win. Other things can
wait.

I walked over to Stonehenge and back (about six miles) with Lord
Grey (Sir Edward, you know) and we, like everybody else, fell to
talking about when the war may end. We know as well as anybody and
no better than anybody else. I have very different moods about
it--no convictions. It seems to me to depend, as things now are,
more on the submarines than on anything else. If we could
effectually discourage them so that the Germans would have to
withdraw them and could no more keep up the spirit of their people
by stories of the imminent starvation of England, I have a feeling
that the hunger and the war weariness of the German people would
lead them to force an end. But, the more they are called on to
suffer the more patriotic do they think themselves and they _may_
go on till they drop dead in their tracks.

What I am really afraid of is that the Germans may, before winter,
offer all that the Western Allies most want--the restoration of
Belgium and France, the return of Alsace-Lorraine, etc., in the
West and the surrender of the Colonies--provided Austria is not
dismembered. That would virtually leave them the chance to work out
their Middle Europe scheme and ultimately there'd probably have to
be another war over that question. That's the real eventuality to
be feared--a German defeat in the West but a German victory in the
Southeast. Everybody in Europe is so war weary that such a plan
_may_ succeed.

On the other hand, what Hoover and Northcliffe fear may come
true--that the Germans are going to keep up the struggle for
years--till their armies are practically obliterated, as Lee's army
was. If the Allies were actually to kill (not merely wound, but
actually kill) 5,000 Germans a day for 300 days a year, it would
take about four years to obliterate the whole German Army. There is