edy conclusion, and
were sure of triumph. Why employ new methods? . . . But the encounter of
the Marne twisted their plans, making them shift from the aggressive to
the defensive. They then brought into service all that the war staff had
learned in the campaigns of the Japanese and Russians, beginning the war
of the trenches, the subterranean struggle which is the logical outcome
of the reach and number of shots of the modern armament. The conquest of
half a mile of territory to-day stands for more than did the assault
of a stone fortress a century ago. Neither side is going to make any
headway for a long time. Perhaps they may never make a definite advance.
The war is bound to be long and tedious, like the athletic conquests
between opponents who are equally matched."

"But it will have to come to an end, sometime," interpolated Desnoyers.

"Undoubtedly, but who knows when? . . . And in what condition will they
both be when it is all over?" . . .

He was counting upon a rapid finale when it was least expected, through
the exhaustion of one of the contestants, carefully dissimulated until
the last moment.

"Germany will be vanquished," he added with firm conviction. "I do
not know when nor how, but she will fall logically. She failed in her
master-stroke in not entering Paris and overcoming its opposition. All
the trumps in her pack of cards were then played. She did not win, but
continues playing the game because she holds many cards, and she will
prolong it for a long time to come. . . . But what she could not do at
first, she will never be able to do."

For Tchernoff, the final defeat did not mean the destruction of Germany
nor the annihilation of the German people.

"Excessive patriotism irritates me," he pursued. "Hearing people form
plans for the definite extinction of Germany seems to me like listening
to the Pan-Germanists of Berlin when they talk of dividing up the
continents."

Then he summed up his opinion.

"Imperialism will have to be crushed for the sake of the tranquillity of
the world; the great war machine which menaces the peace of nations will
have to be suppressed. Since 1870, we have all been living in dread of
it. For forty years, the war has been averted, but in all that time,
what apprehension!" . . .

What was most irritating Tchernoff was the moral lesson born of this
situation which had ended by overwhelming the world--the glorification
of power, the sanctification of success, the t