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her enemies, a peace acceptable" to Germany more unacceptable" to the other side, but, besides that, a war which began for self-preservation, as every German thinks, threatens to become, even in spite of itself, a war of conquest. The military power by virtue of its successes is in a way to launch Germany upon a career of expansion which is repugnant to a great many Germans on ethical and temperamental grounds and would be regarded with dismay by a great many others on economical ground.

The True Intelligence

The economic, financial, and social intelligence of Germany knows what it was never the business of the military intelligence to consider, namely, that conquered territory may be for many years not an asset, but a liability requiring the outlay of vast amounts of capital with no hope of immediate return. East Prussia, for instance, has been a very bad investment so far, considered purely as an investment. It has probably never returned as much as 2 per cent. on the capital advanced by the Government for its development. When you think of adding Poland and the Baltic provinces of Russia as national German investments, together with enormous financial responsibilities on account of the Turkish partnership and the Bulgarian connection, the only source of capital to any and all of these being Germany, it becomes a question whether Germany could afford, for the sake of her own future, to accept any more victories from the military power.

The Civil Power Awake

The civil power is conscious of its present weakness and its future responsibilities. It must find a way to end the war. The military power is conscious only of its strength. It is conceivable to the civil power that a point may be reached at which it would become necessary to stop thinking of Germany and begin to think of Europe, a point at which Germany could not weaken her enemies without at the same time weakening herself, a point at which the only prospect left would be that of a hollow,

ghastly triumph on the scene of a ruined Europe.

From this separateness of feeling and consciousness it must not be assumed that the civil and military powers are arrayed against each other. Rather they are two aspects of the same body, since people in the aggregate, like the individual, have several aspects, of which one at a time may be so prominently displayed as to subordinate or obscure all the others.

To make a picture of it, Germany sees herself as a man who has, not upon his own initiative, become engaged in a struggle with several neighbors at once. He is stronger than any one of them; he has made headway against all of them together, and yet the odds are terrific. In his heart he does not want to kill them, because either he with them, or his children with their children, shall have to go on living together in one little world for a long time, but he cannot stop. He cannot even propose to stop, because the fighting is headlong and his enemies keep saying: "We grow stronger and he grows weaker. We have only to hold together and vanquish him utterly at last. Every blow he strikes makes him weaker, and the instant he relaxes or stops for breath we will give him the mortal thrust."

Morbid Feelings

This does not pretend to be a statement of proportional truth; it is the truth only as to the light in which Germany sees her own position. She be lieves that her enemies intend to crush her. Each time they say it, perhaps never to mean it literally, she takes it literally, and is morbidly confirmed in the thought that it is dangerous to say or do anything on her part that might be construed outside as a sign of weakness. She is in a position to propose an armistice and to formulate peace pro posals, except for the morbid fear of heartening her enemies. But for that, the civil power might have found itself long ago. As often as it becomes vocal, as it did last December in the Reichstag, when the Chancellor offered to receive proposals from the other side, the world seems to Germany to hurl back the words, saying: "She is weakening. She is desperate. In a little while her arms

will fall, and then for the mortal thrust." The English press excitedly referred to the Chancellor's speech as "bluff," and as the "whimpering of Germany." At that, the military power, which has no political insight and is under the delusion that it can end the war because Germany is the only uncrushable nation-it "You see what says to the civil power: comes of your efforts. You are powerless. Leave it to us."

And it is left again in the hands of the military power. The war machine goes on and on. It is in danger of overrunning itself.

fear public opinion will commit itself in some unexpected way, or get itself misunderstood outside. The Government aims to keep opinion unformulated. If an editor takes leave of himself to express the extreme views of the annexationists, who believe in the right of conquest, his paper is as likely to be suppressed as that of an editor who denounces conquest and expansion on moral or ethical grounds.

War Is Not Static

There is some reason in this. The war is not a static thing. Conditions of peace

""

The Forbidden Thought

So far only two possibilities have appeared in German thought-one, the possibility of beating the enemy into a state of helpless exhaustion; second, the possibility of finding through the civil intelligence of the belligerents a way to peace. A third possibility, which the outside world would call a probability, namely, that of Germany's physical exhaustion and utter defeat, does not penetrate the German's faculty of imagination. He simply does not consider it. For him it seems a contingency that does not exist. You have, therefore, an impassé of basically antagonistic assumptions. So long as Germany believes that she alone is uncrushable, and so long as her enemies believe that they are unconquerable, and both sides are under the delusion that the other will stop at nothing short of the other's utter defeat on the plane of force, there is little hope of peace through any interference of civil intelligence. There is nothing in view but a progressive exhaustion of Europe.

And all the time there exists in Germany, as was said in the beginning, the materials out of which a rational, perhaps one might say a reasonable, peace program could be produced. There is a ban on peace discussions in the press for

to Germany a year ago would not seem reasonable now. And perhaps those that would seem reasonable today would seem unreasonable after the outcome of "the mortal combat with England," for which the military power is making prodigious preparations. Moreover, as a Socialist member of the Reichstag explained to a party of Americans one day at a lunch

eon:

"You have got to trade. You don't say, 'Here, now, I will give you this teapot for that sugar bowl and call it quits.' Instead, you say, 'A sugar bowl! Who wants a sugar bowl? I don't like its shape and it's very small. But, see here! Look at this teapot of mine! Isn't it beautiful? What will you give me for that?' And if you expect to gain the cream pitcher, the water bottle, and some other things, against which the other fellow will have only the sugar bowl to trade, why, of course, you are not going to state your minimum demands prematurely. That wouldn't be human nature, would it?"

The Peace That Flees

Of course not. Human nature is the fact which makes it harder and harder to find a basis for peace the more you win from another who thinks he can win them all back, though he may have to wreck the table in doing it. What are table things worth without a table to put them on or food to eat, at all?

Germany's very minimum demands at any given time past, or now, probably would have been and are less unreasonable than the world would think. There is, of course, the German who wants

everything in sight. There is the other kind of German who wants only the room in which to be let alone, and nothing more of war. Between them is every kind of opinion in degree. There is also the intelligence to see that whatever peace is made, short of the remote and horrifying peace possible to be made by the military power in a ruined Europe, will probably, almost certainly, be the political death of the men who become responsible for it. Every manner of post-bellum evil will be laid upon their heads. This is particularly true by reason of the tradition that the diplomats of Prussia have always thrown away what the soldiers won in war. However, there are Germans enough who for a rational peace would be only too willing to sacrifice themselves politically.

Materials at Hand

If one were to guess from the content of a hundred conversations with all kinds of Germans what program could be constructed roughly from the material now available, it would be something like this: Belgium to be restored to the Belgians and France to the French; cultural autonomy for Poland, that country to become a buffer State; cession of the German-speaking Baltic provinces by Russia to Germany, and German possession of a corridor through the Balkan peninsula to Constantinople. That leaves open for consideration such vexing questions as the way of trade upon the sea, the fate of colonies, and the matter of indemnities.

It is not possible in any case for a German to voice the minimum demands. He secretly reserves something which he would yield in a pinch. Professor Hans Delbrüch, who is prominent in the counsels of the moderates and antiannexationists, thinks Belgium and France are the main obstacles to peace, and that Germany would yield as to both of them. In fact, it is uncommon to find a German who thinks of holding any French or Belgian territory for Germany. If you mention Antwerp, the "pistol aimed at England's head," one German says Germany should keep it to ten who say Germany ought not to hold it, for to hold it would mean perpetual

war with England. One is surprised to find how many Germans see that England and Germany have a destiny in common if only they can find two keys to unlock it with; and how many hope for an alliance ultimately between Germany and England against the "Russian peril."

Indemnities

The question of indemnities would be very difficult. The financial authorities would undertake to insist upon them, just as the military authorities would make defensible frontiers the paramount condition of peace; but there are yet Germans of very great influence who think Germany cannot extort a penny of money from her enemies, and ought not to try, and that the future of peace rests not upon frontiers but upon understanding.

The purpose in this writing is not to suggest the kind of peace proposals that Germany might offer or entertain, but to indicate the existence of thought in Germany so varied and at many points so reasonable that the possibility of constructing a rational peace program is continually present. Every single point touched upon runs at once into complications. Difficulties without end may be

raised to any one concrete suggestion; and yet the fact is that the civil power of Germany could contemplate terms of peace that at least could be discussed by the enemy.

Psychological Necessities

That no proposals have been made is owing to what may be called the psychological necessities of the situation. The German Government is almost ludicrously cautious. In December a paper in Zurich, Switzerland, printed a long article setting forth the conditions on which Germany might consider peace, and said the article was inspired by the German Foreign Office, with a view to stimulating discussion among neutrals. The article was, in fact, inspired, and for exactly that purpose. There was no doubt of this in Berlin, among informed persons; it was known even what member of the German Government prepared

the article printed in the Zurich paper. But when the German papers reprinted it from the Zurich journal, by permission of the German censor, they were careful to say in a footnote, between brackets, that the idea of the article having been inspired in Germany was, of course, unfounded.

The civil intelligence of Germany, as you may see, is working with strange and fragile material. It lacks confidence in itself. It has no point of crystallization. The head of it is more a scholar than a statesman. And it looks and faintly calls to the head of the only great power in the world that is not at war. That is the President of the United States.

You get the feeling in Europe that the people are mad and begin to know it, as if they had suddenly come awake in an asylum, all shouting together that they are sane but unable to prove it to

themselves, to each other, or to the world outside. And nobody can see a way out. There is a despondent saying that diplomacy in Europe is bankrupt.

He who might be called the economic dictator of Europe says calmly: "Isn't it nonsense? Can you imagine what it is all about? I can't. It seems to me to be the most terrible nonsense. But I see no way out of it." And he goes on cruelly bending the industrial energies of Germany to the uses of war. That is his job.

There must be a way out. Everybody keeps saying so, as if it were something that had to be true, without any reasons why. And although Americans are disliked, for obvious reasons, most Germans think the initiative for peace will come from the United States. That is why they refused to make light of the Ford expedition and wondered why Americans did.

of verse. His wife is an American.

There is no sword in my hand

Where I watch oversea.

Father's land, mother's land,
What will you say of me,

Who am blood of your German blood,

Through and through, Yet would not, if I could,

Slaughter for you?

What will you say of one

Who has no heart

Even to cheer you on?
No heavens part,
No guiding God appears
To my strained eyes.

Athwart the fog of fears
And hates and lies,

I see no goal, I mark

No ringing message flying;

Only a brawl in the dark

For you, your men of dreams

And your strong men of deeds

Crumble and die with screams,

And under hoofs like weeds

Are trampled; for you,
In city and on hill

To what end, O Fatherland?
I see your legions sweep
Like waves up the gray strand.
I hear your women weep.
And the sound is as the groaning
Swish of the ebbing wave-
A nation's pitiful moaning
Beside an open grave.
Ah, Fatherland, not all
Who love you most,

Armed to triumph or fall,

March with your mighty host. Some there are yet, as I,

Who stand apart,

And with aching heart

Ponder the Whither and Why

Of the tragic story,

Asking with bated breath,

Which way lies glory,

And which way, death?

HE war plow that in these days rips open Europe's old cultural soil likewise draws its deep-cutting furrows across our land. Export restrictions and other prohibitions of similar kind are the economic furrows, but we shall not speak of that today. Let us rather examine what are the spiritual changes in our relations with our wartorn neighbors.

The devastating effect of this cruel war has by this time been fully revealed to the Swiss people. Much of this has come to our knowledge through the transit of many wounded or interned. Most, however, of what we know about the war comes through both official and unofficial reports.

Among the deepest furrows cutting into our soil are those having to do with the German and kindred nationalities found in the ranks of our own citizens. The war has compelled us to view our interracial, political, and cultural relationships in an entirely new light. From every direction come suggestions as to what we ought to do. Newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, flood the country. with well-meaning propositions; but there is one question which, curiously enough, few concern themselves about at present. That is, What is the duty of the individual in the circumstances? And this is the more to be wondered at since in our free Switzerland during normal times we continually speak of liberty in action and individuality.

In answering the question as to what the individual as such should do, it is of course clear that he must steer his course between two monstrosities. It has been well said that a neutral can only look on and suffer. During those August days of many months ago our neighbors to the west, the east, the north, took to themselves all there was of sudden impulse,

of enthusiasm, of zeal. We must confess that whatever emotion may have possessed our troops charged with guarding our borders, or however much our national spokesmen dwelt on internal affairs, it was all far and away behind the spiritual greatness that stirred the very souls of our neighbors.

So.

There are many reasons why this was Our neighbors drew forth to battle for life or death; we merely had to occupy our frontier lines and hope that we should not be enmeshed in the struggle. But a thing that depressed us very much was this that we not only feared for our national safety, but were apprehensive lest Switzerland's entrance in the war would prove a matter of conscience in view of the intermixed racial relationship with certain of our neighbors.

It is true that we do take part in the war, but just because we are not directly concerned, I am one who does not believe we need keep silence. While our neighbors are offering up their lives, certain supermoral dignitaries preach morality. I have slight patience with those who, from the safe vantage of our "peaceful isle," fling at the combatants such expressions as "murderers" and "wanton destroyers."

I am of the opinion that we would do better not to erect tribunes of judgment on our soil, but rather to strive to make our position fruitful by understanding the impulses that govern our neighbors. It should not be taken for granted that the impulsion in the warring countries was merely greed of power or capitalistic selfseeking. Exactly because we Swiss are outside the boundaries of such possible ideals ought we to study the basic causes responsible for the present state of affairs. Such investigations would bring us in direct touch with our own innerSwiss problems.