ccession of hammer-strokes
astounding in their rapidity and in their continuity, which I need not
here describe in detail, because in my despatches, now in book form, I
have narrated that history as I was a witness of it day by day.

Elsewhere the French and Americans had done their part with steady,
driving pressure. The illimitable reserves of Americans, and their
fighting quality, which triumphed over a faulty organization of
transport and supplies, left the German High Command without hope even
for a final gamble.

Before them the German troops were in revolt, at last, against the
bloody, futile sacrifice of their manhood and people. A blinding light
had come to them, revealing the criminality of their war lords in
this "Great Swindle" against their race. It was defeat and agony which
enlightened them, as most people--even ourselves--are enlightened only
by suffering and disillusionment, and never by successes.

X

After the armistice I went with our troops to the Rhine, and entered
Cologne with them. That was the most fantastic adventure of all in four
and a half years of strange and terrible adventures. To me there was no
wild exultation in the thought of being in Cologne with our conquering
army. The thought of all the losses on the way, and of all the futility
of this strife, smote at one's heart. What fools the Germans had been,
what tragic fools! What a mad villainy there had been among rival
dynasties and powers and politicians and peoples to lead to this
massacre! What had any one gained out of it all? Nothing except ruin.
Nothing except great death and poverty and remorse and revolt.

The German people received us humbly. They were eager to show us
courtesy and submission. It was a chance for our young Junkers, for the
Prussian in the hearts of young pups of ours, who could play the petty
tyrant, shout at German waiters, refuse to pay their bills, bully
shopkeepers, insult unoffending citizens. A few young staff-officers
behaved like that, disgustingly. The officers of fighting battalions
and the men were very different. It was a strange study in psychology to
watch them. Here they were among the "Huns." The men they passed in the
streets and sat with in the restaurants had been in German uniforms a
few weeks before, or a few days. They were "the enemy," the men they
had tried to kill, the men who had tried to kill them. They had actually
fought against them in the same places. At the Domhof Ho