question here is pressing, the harvest will be
good, if present indications continue. Rye is the principal crop
and this is harvested about July 12th. I think, however, Germany
can last, and in very desperation may try a great offensive which
may break the French lines and change the whole position. The
people here, although tired of war, are well disciplined and will
see this thing through without revolution.

We are rather in calm after the last crisis. The Chancellor sent
for me and said he hoped we would do something to England or
propose a general peace, otherwise his position here will become,
he thinks, rather hard. Delbrueck, vice-chancellor, very hostile
to America, is out--failure as Minister of Interior to organise
food supply is the real reason.

* * * * *

Yesterday I had a talk with the Chancellor. The occasion was the
Polish Relief question which I shall now take up direct with
Helfferich, who, as I predicted, is the new Minister of the
Interior and Vice-Chancellor. He is a very business-like man and
did much for the favourable settlement of our last crisis.

The Chancellor seemed rather downcast yesterday, without apparent
cause. He says that Germany from now on will have two months of
hardship on the food question, but that after that things will
be all right. The crops, as I have seen on my shooting place, are
magnificent and the rye harvest will probably begin even before
July 15th.

Mrs. Gerard has just returned from a week in Budapest with her
sister. The Hungarians are once more gay and confident. The
Italians, their hereditary foes, are being driven back, and on
the Russian front there seems to be a sort of tacit truce--no
fighting and visiting in trenches, etc.--terms of great
friendliness.

(This was the beginning of the fraternisation which led, a year
later, to the collapse of Russia.)

* * * * *

At the races here last Sunday there was an absolutely record
crowd and more money bet than on any previous day in German
racing history. The cheaper field and stands were so full of
soldiers that the crowd seemed grey, which goes to show that the
last man is not at the front.

State Socialism makes advances over here. A proposition is now
discussed to compel the young men who are earning large wages to
save a part thereof.

On the _Sussex_ question, I got a colleague to ask about the
punishment of the Commander and to say a