for they have all been
surprises, one after the other.

"Only a few days ago a high State official said to me: 'Let us confess
at once that in all Europe nobody believed in this war; everybody had
prepared for it, but nobody thought it possible--not even those who
wanted war.'

"All thinking men considered that the interwoven economic dependence on
each other among the nations, was so strong that none dare commit
suicide by commencing a war. Thus we spoke to each other, and that
seemed an axiom. Further, it seemed to be true that even if a madman let
loose the dogs of war, then it would be all over in a fortnight. The man
in the street imagined that it would be a kind of parade (_Aufmarsch_),
a mobilization test, and the power which succeeded best would be the
victor, for no country in the world was strong enough to stand the
enormous cost for longer than three weeks.

"Now three months have gone, and we have stood the strain, and we can
bear it for another three, six months, a year, or as many years as it
must be. The calculation was wrong, all the calculations were wrong: the
reality of this war surpasses everything which we had imagined, and it
has been glorious to experience on so grand a scale that reality always
surpasses the conception. Even that is not true which we learned in all
the schools and read in all the books--that every war is an awful
misfortune. Even this war is horrible; yes, but our salvation. It seems
so to us, and so it has appeared to us from the very first day onwards.

"That first day will remain in our memories for ever; never in all our
lives had we experienced anything so grand, and we had never believed it
possible to experience anything so magnificent. Word for word Bismarck's
prophecy (1888) has come true: 'It must be a war to which the whole
nation gives its assent; it must be a national war, conducted with an
enthusiasm like that of 1870, when we were ruthlessly attacked. Then all
Germany from the Memel to Lake Constance will blaze up like a
powder-mine and the whole land bristle with bayonets.' The war which
Bismarck prophesied was this war, and what he foretold came to pass, and
we saw it with our eyes. We saw the German mobilization with eyes which
since then have been consecrate.

"All enthusiasm is splendid, even in an individual, be he who he may and
for whatever cause you like. In enthusiasm everything good in a man
appears, while the common and vulgar in him sinks away. A