Italy or that in Roumania and
Gallicia, to say nothing of that in the Northeast, was no longer even
considered. The young Emperor sought only to come to an understanding
with his people.

It was a matter of days before both ammunition and food would be
exhausted on the two fronts, and neither had a superfluous man to send
to Berlin, or even to repair the tracks.

3

By Friday there was no longer any doubt of the complete success of the
Revolution. Britain, France, Russia, Italy, the United States, with a
prompt and canny statesmanship, remarkable in Governments, had formally
acknowledged the German Republic, and offered terms of peace possible
for an ambitious and self-respecting but beaten people to accept. At all
events there would be no commercial boycott, and the young Republic
would be given every assistance in restoring the shattered finances of
Germany, and its economic relations with the rest of the world.

The good German people were flattered in phrases that they rolled on
their tongues. Even those too schooled in lies to believe the statesmen
of their own or any land reflected that, after all, the Enemy Allies had
demonstrated they were sportsmen, that German prisoners had been well
treated, and that before the war there had been no restrictions upon
German commerce save in insidious reiterated words of men determined
upon war at any cost. As a matter of fact, Germany had been absorbing
the commerce of the world, and Britain had been reprehensibly supine.

As the Socialists now did all the talking, and unhindered, it was not
difficult to persuade even the reluctant minority that the military
party had precipitated the war in a sudden panic at the rapidly
developing power of the proletariat.

Night fliers dropped millions of leaflets in the vicinity of the armies
on the Eastern and Western fronts, signed (at the pistol point) by the
most powerful names in the former Government, as well as by the
well-known Social-Democrat leaders, containing the details of the
Revolution and proofs of its success. The Empire had fallen. A Republic,
acknowledged by the great powers of the world, was established. Would
the soldiers stack their arms and return to their homes? If the generals
or under officers attempted to restrain them it was to be remembered
that the soldiers were as a hundred thousand to one.

The women felt no real apprehension of an avenging army. They knew the
average German male. His innate subse