The Basis of Future Operations
by this time was ready to give it a hearing. Blockade and propaganda began gradually to undermine our moral resolution and shake the belief in ultimate victory. The very natural longing for peace began to assume forms that bordered on weakness, led to divisions among the people and lowered the moral of the army.
Poisonous weeds grew on this soil. All German sentiment, all patriotism, died in many breasts. Self came first. War profiteers of every kind, not excluding the political variety, who took advantage of the country's danger and the Government's weakness to snatch political and personal advantages, became more and more numerous. Our moral resolution suffered untold harm. We lost confidence in ourselves.
The idea of revolution, preached by enemy propaganda and Bolshevism, found the Germans in a receptive frame of mind, and gained ground in the army and navy through the Independent Socialists. Pernicious doctrines spread among the masses. The German people, at home and the front, had received its deathblow.
When I was appointed First Quartermaster-General, Germany
was just at the beginning of this development. Its nature and its
• future course could not be grasped. One thing, however, was
absolutely certain, that we could not watch it idly and do nothing.
Something had now been done to lighten the burden of the
blockade; we had broken through it in Rumania. Nobody
knew whether we would ever have another chance, or how we
should use it.
We were hypnotized by the enemy propaganda as a rabbit is by a snake. It was exceptionally clever and conceived on a great scale. It worked by strong mass-suggestion, kept in the closest touch with the military situation, and was unscrupulous as to the means it used.
The German people, who had not yet learnt the art or the value of silence; had, with their mistaken frankness, shown the enemy propaganda in their speech, writings and actions, the best line of attack.
The German people had themselves coined the phrase, " Prus-
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