ing
desperately to think out new words which may help them to regain their
power over simple minds. The old gangs are organizing a new system of
defense, building a new kind of Hindenburg line behind which they are
dumping their political ammunition. But their Hindenburg line is not
impregnable. The angry murmur of the mob--highly organized, disciplined,
passionate, trained to fight, is already approaching the outer bastions.

In Russia the mob is in possession, wiping the blood out of their eyes
after the nightmare of anarchy, encompassed by forces of the old regime,
and not knowing yet whether its victory is won or how to shape the new
order that must follow chaos.

In Germany there is only the psychology of stunned people, broken for
a time in body and spirit, after stupendous efforts and bloody losses
which led to ruin and the complete destruction of their old pride,
philosophy, and power. The revolution that has happened there is strange
and rather pitiful. It was not caused by the will--power of the people,
but by a cessation of will-power. They did not overthrow their ruling
dynasty, their tyrants. The tyrants fled, and the people were not angry,
nor sorry, nor fierce, nor glad. They were stupefied. Members of the old
order joined hands with those of the people's parties, out to evolve a
republic with new ideals based upon the people's will and inspired by
the people's passion. The Germans, after the armistice and after the
peace, had no passion, as they had no will. They were in a state of
coma. The "knock-out blow" had happened to them, and they were incapable
of action. They just ceased from action. They had been betrayed to this
ruin by their military and political rulers, but they had not vitality
enough to demand vengeance on those men. The extent of their ruin was so
great that it annihilated anger, political passion, pride, all emotion
except that of despair. How could they save something out of the
remnants of the power that had been theirs? How could they keep alive,
feed their women and children, pay their monstrous debts? They had lost
their faith as well as their war. Nothing that they had believed was
true. They had believed in their invincible armies--and the armies had
bled to death and broken. They had believed in the supreme military
genius of their war lords, and the war lords, blunderers as well as
criminals, had led them to the abyss and dropped them over. They had
believed in the divine mis