Weller, Sergeant
Reid, and Hill, brother of the British Reservist who gave us our
first training, have all been exchanged.

* * *

I am sorry that I cannot go back. Not that I like fighting--for I do
not; but because I believe every man who is physically fit should
have a hand in this great clean-up--every man is needed! From what
I have seen of the German people, I believe they will resist
stubbornly, and a war of exhaustion will be a long affair with a
people so well trained and organized. The military class know well
that if they are forced to make terms unfavorable to Germany, their
power will be gone forever, and they would rather go down to defeat
before the Allied nations than be overthrown by their own people.
There is no doubt that the war was precipitated by the military class
in Germany because the people were growing too powerful. So they
might as well fight on, with a chance of victory, as to conclude an
unsatisfactory peace and face a revolution.

The German people have to be taught one thing before their real
education can begin. They have to be made to see--and the Allied
armies are making it plainer every day--that war is unprofitable;
that their army, great though it is, may meet a greater; that heavy
losses may come to their own country. They need to be reminded that
he that liveth by the sword may die by the sword!

The average German thinks that only through superior military
strength can any good thing come to a nation. All their lives they
have been taught that, and their hatred of England has been largely
a result of their fear of England's superior strength. They cannot
understand that England and the other Allies have no desire to
dominate German affairs. They do not believe that there is an ethical
side to this war. The Germans are pitifully dense to ethical values.
They are not idealists or sentimentalists, and their imagination is
not easily kindled.

Added to this, they have separated themselves from religion. Less
than two per cent of the men attend church, and if the extracts we
read from the sermons preached in their churches is a fair sample
of the teaching given there, the ninety-eight who stay at home are
better off than the two who go!

[Illustration: Post-Card sent by Private Bromley from the Prison-Camp
of Soltau, Germany, in July, 1918 / The crosses mark the graves of
prisoners who have died at this camp]

All these things have helped to produce a ty