_______The Basis of Future Operations
mental belief among the leading statesmen of the Entente that the German Army on the Western Front can never be conquered by purely military means. But it is, none the less, clear that the Entente will win, owing to the internal conditions in Germany and the Central Powers, which will lead to the fall of the Imperial house. In the autumn of this year at latest revolution will break out in Germany. It is quite clear to us that there are influential circles in Germany for whom nothing could be worse than a military victory of Ludendorff."
This bore out the words of Sprobel, a member of the Prussian Diet, and editor of Vorwdrts, in 1915 :
" I confess quite openly that a complete victory of the Empire would not be in the interests of Social Democracy."
I am reluctant to write these lines and let them go out to the world. But truth is truth, and these words were spoken.
VII
The Imperial Chancellor was responsible for the maintenance
of our moral. G.H.Q. would gladly have undertaken the work
* of educating public opinion, but in accordance with their duty
they invariably appealed to the Imperial Chancellor and asked
his intervention.
It lay with him to rcmDve the, unfortunately, natural discontent of the people, and to proceed against the excesses and extravagances in our war industries. These and other sinister manifestations were bound to cause discontent, and so weaken the moral of all classes as to do irreparable harm to our fighting capacity, Profiteering, pleasure seeking, the thought of self, crowded out all noble aspirations, and privations made men callous. The men in the trenches could not help fearing that others would take their jobs and rob them of their livelihood. It is with deep emotion that one looks back and sees how the German sense of truth and honesty, spotless personal purity and devotion to the Fatherland gave place to something else, something quite foreign to Germans—love of self, which became the
369 24