My War Memories, 1914-1918
our determination to hold out. This, too, I explained to the Chancellor.
At last, after two months' delay, and prolonged and uncdifying pressure from G.H.Q., the Government made up its mind, in November, to introduce into the Reichstag the Auxiliary Service Bill, which was passed on the and December. It was neither fish nor fowl. We wanted something wholesale. The bill departed, too, from the principle of universal liability to service, which we had laid down in September, and gave no security that the labour power obtained would be so employed as to produce the maximum results. In practice the law, largely owing to the manner in which it was administered, was but a shadow of the reality we desired, a reality which would have devoted the whole strength of the nation to the nation's service, and so supplied reinforcements for the army and labour for the army and home industries. In the whole text of the statute the first paragraph alone bears any resemblance to what G.H.Q. had aimed at,
The provisions did not even cover women, although there were many available to replace men at their work and release them for the army.
In spite of everything, I gave the law at first a warm welcome. Friend and foe alike attributed to it, as a sign of our determination, a far higher value than it really possessed. In connection with our successes in Rumania, it was bound to have considerable moral effect.
I followed the course of the discussions in the Reichstag with unmixed regret. This was the first time in the war that I had the opportunity, and also, in my position as First Quartermaster-General, the duty, to do so. G.H.Q. obtained by this means an insight into the state of public opinion that was of decisive importance for the issue of the war. It was certain that the Government was in a very delicate position in dealing with the difficult labour questions. It should have followed a strong war policy, instead of a weak and submissive domestic policy. Why did it not boldly and clearly make the whole people share the responsibility for the result of the war ? Certain parties in the Reichstag seemed unable to realize the necessity of postponing
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