ddress
from the throne room in the residence palace in Berlin to the deputies,
promised election reforms in Prussia--after the war. But during last
summer the Socialists began to demand immediate election reforms. To
further embarrass the Chancellor and the Government, the National
Liberals made the same demands, knowing all the time that if the
Government ever attempted it, they could swing the Reichstag majority
against the proposal by technicalities.

Throughout the summer months the Government could not hush up the
incessant discussion of war aims. More than one newspaper was
suppressed for demanding peace or for demanding a statement of the
Government's position in regard to Belgium and Northern France. The
peace movement within Germany grew by leaps and bounds. The Socialists
demanded immediate action by the Government. The Conservatives, the
National Liberals and the Catholic party wanted peace but only the kind
of a peace which Germany could force upon the Entente. The Chancellor
and other German leaders tried again throughout the summer and fall to
get the outside world interested in peace but at this time the English
and French attacks on the Somme were engaging the attention and the
resources of the whole world.

Before these conflicting movements within Germany can be understood one
must know something of the organisation of Germany in war time.

When the military leaders of Germany saw that the possibility of
capturing Paris or of destroying London was small and that a German
victory, which would fasten Teutonic peace terms on the rest of the
world, was almost impossible, they turned their eyes to
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Balkans and Turkey. Friederich Naumann,
member of the Progressive Party of the Reichstag, wrote a book on
"Central Europe," describing a great nation stretching from the North
Sea to Bagdad, including Germany, all of Austria-Hungary, parts of
Serbia and Roumania and Turkey, with Berlin as the Capital. It was
toward this goal which the Kaiser turned the forces of Germany at his
command. If Germany could not rule the world, if Germany could not
conquer the nine nations which the Director of the Post and Telegraph
had lined up on the 2nd of August, 1914, then Germany could at least
conquer the Dual Monarchy, the Balkans and, Turkey, and even under
these circumstances come out of the war a greater nation than she
entered it. But to accomplish this purpose one thing had to b