At the same time it asserted that the Official Socialists could only affect policy by staying in the Majority block and influencing it, and it attacked the Independent Socialists for voting against the peace. Similarly the Internationale Korrespondenz launched violent attacks against the Bolshevists. Indeed, the only Majority Socialist paper which opposed the Government's Eastern policy effectively was the Frankfurter Volksstimme.

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17. Foreign Policy. The Government declared its policy by two speeches delivered on the 25th February; one, on foreign policy, by the Chancellor, Count Hertling, and the other, on domestic policy, by the Vice-Chancellor, von Payer. Hertling declared that there was no intention of retaining Belgium, but that Germany must be safeguarded against the danger of that country becoming an object or jumping-off ground of enemy machinations'. Similarly, Germany did not think of establishing herself in Esthonia or Livonia: regarding Courland and Lithuania . . . it was a question of providing those countries with organs of self-government.' The Petrograd Government had accepted German peace conditions, and negotiations were being resumed at Brest-Litovsk; negotiations with Rumania had begun at Bucharest. 'In contra-distinction to the Central Powers the Entente had from the first pursued aims of conquest. It is fighting for the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France. I have nothing to add to what I have already said on this subject. There is no Alsace-Lorraine question in an international sense. If there is such a question it is purely a German question.'

It is obvious that anything except the demands of the most extreme annexationists could be brought within the terms of this speech, certainly anything of what may be called the Ludendorff policy. It was even more obvious that the recent strikes had not disposed the Government to conciliation. On the contrary, its suppression of them had emboldened it to publish its veiled annexation policy' in a speech which did not provide very much veil.

18. Internal Policy. On the same day the Progressive von Payer made his maiden speech as Vice-Chancellor; the Federated Governments were conscious of their duties to the dependants of soldiers, and had mitigated many a hardship by lowering the age limit for old-age pensions: they had reformed the laws concerning associations. The Reichstag had received

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a draft for a Labour Chamber Law which, it was hoped, would satisfactorily settle industrial disputes: there was also a draft bill for redistributing the Reichstag electoral divisions, and another for abolishing para. 153 of the Trade Regulations. The Imperial Government was also considering the question of housing. As for Prussian suffrage reform, von Payer expressed his firm conviction that the franchise provided for in the bill would come, and his reasonable hope that it would come soon. The Reichstag and the Government had come into closer touch, and he hoped that this process of parliamentarization would continue; he then rebuked the Extreme Left and reminded them that the strikes had brought many workmen into economic difficulties, and had cost human lives and human happiness. But the Extreme Right were just as bad: they too denied the good faith of their opponents and predicted downfall for the State if it were not guided by the minority of which they approved. Finally, after declaring that there would have to be new taxes to maintain the equilibrium of the Budget, the Vice-Chancellor announced that the bread ration would after all not be reduced.

This speech was well calculated to make the best of the existing political situation; if assurances about the Prussian franchise were wearing a little thin, at any rate there was no denying the real benefits of the Government's industrial policy. The average Moderate Socialist reader would find it difficult, too, to deny the truth of Payer's strictures on the strikes and the Independents, more especially as he had rebuked the Jingoes even more severely.

That the Extreme Left had in fact lost strength in the country may be seen from the election at Nieder-Barnim early in March, when the Independents lost the seat to the Majority Socialists, after repeated announcements that they were willing to accept the result as an index of the party's decision between the two sections. At the same time, their failure was partly due to their own incompetence in selecting a singularly bad candidate, to their want of a press, and to the fact that all the weight of bourgeois and non-party' influence was thrown on to the side of their opponents.

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The first days of March were mainly occupied with discussions of the Russian Peace Treaty, and disclosed no new developments in domestic politics, the Majority Socialists con

tinuing, with the exception of the directors of the Frankfurter Volksstimme, to persuade themselves of the uselessness of protest. All other parties but the Independents had acquiesced with varying degrees of enthusiasm or of reserve. The only other feature of interest was a growing optimism among the parties of the Left with regard to Prussian franchise.

19. The Home Front' and Army Moral. No doubt there were very sufficient military reasons for the commencement of the March offensive, but there were equally urgent reasons of domestic policy. Ludendorff, after describing the loss by desertion andskrimshanking' in the winter, declares that in March the army's moral seemed to be completely restored, though there was a certain amount of secret agitation. He attributed the failure of the warlike spirit at home to the vices and misdeeds of the Government, but adds that the generally improved spirit of the army had a temporary influence on that at home, and this blinded us to a good deal. This improvement at home' was really due to influences already discussed, which all come back directly or indirectly to the fact that the war on two fronts had ended, and that the position on the one remaining front had improved.

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It may be doubted, too, whether Ludendorff was justified in boasting of improved moral in the army. On the 24th February a Reichstag debate on this subject left a quite different impression. Progressives and Socialists complained of favouritism in the matter of leave, of the retention of Landsturmers over 45 at the front, of bad medical service, and of the calling-up of individuals for 'political' reasons. There was other evidence also of increasing discontent and indiscipline, particularly in the Navy. Among civilian workmen there was always more and more grumbling about food conditions, but their recent experiences had removed any inclination to strike with the object of forcing the Government to make peace. The Majority Socialists had received the Russian peace very grudgingly and unwillingly, and even outside their ranks there was a good deal of displeasure at its terms. Its value, apart from military considerations, lay in the benefits which many of the public hoped from it, and which, as the experts must have known; were not likely to materialize. There had been signs of Austrian discontent with the alliance, as in Dr. Lammasch's recent

1 War Memories, ii. 586.

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speech in the Reichsrath, and Ludendorff at any rate knew well that the alliance depended solely on the hope of German victory. On the whole it is probably true that the military party was as strong as it had ever been, and as closely united with the Government, with which, indeed, its differences were as to methods rather than objects: the various political parties were, except for the Independents, convinced of the futility of clean-cut opposition: the people were, some from conviction and some from recent experience, unwilling to attempt to stop the prosecution of the war : the economic situation was unlikely to be ameliorated as much as was generally expected, and would therefore in effect get worse; military moral was not what might be wished, but it was better than it had been and than it was likely to become. It would be exaggeration to say that the domestic situation necessitated immediate military success, but it did require military success, and there was more chance of obtaining it now than there would be later. Ludendorff speaks of the attempt of Colonel von Haeften,1 Max Warburg, and Conrad Haussmann to get into touch with the Entente for the purposes of negotiation. He complains in view of these facts (which he did not know at the time) of Hertling's and Payer's refusal to contradict the rumour that peace could have been obtained in March if he had not insisted on attacking. In truth, no peace could have been obtained which would have been approved by fifty votes in the Reichstag.

20. First Results of the March Offensive. When the offensive began, the general feeling in Germany, more particularly as seen in the Press and in the Reichstag, was one of confidence, but of a very tremulous confidence. The opening days of the battle strengthened confidence very much; on the 25th March the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag was already announcing that 'the decisive blow of the break-through has followed the breach in the English positions'. The next day the Centre's organ, Kölnische Volkszeitung, thought it no longer possible to conclude peace on the terms which we were willing to accept a week ago'. Vorwärts reported that the whole people was 'imbued with the feeling that if ever military events can bring peace, it will be now'; the Press as a whole was jubilant. In the early days of April jubilation increased; Vorwärts 1 A Hamburg banker.

2 A Progressive member of the Reichstag. Cf. Ludendorff, ii, p. 593.

grieved to think that there was now no way out but a complete German victory and the dangers which that would entail, and the Welt am Montag also regretted that a German victory was now inevitable. The Liberal Frankfurter Zeitung came to the conclusion that after all, though Briey and Longwy were not necessary to Germany, yet they were more useful to her than to France, and that politics must build on this plain economic fact. At the same time the restoration of Belgian neutrality was unthinkable except as an unarmed neutrality. The Münchener Neueste Nachrichten began to wonder whether the July Resolution still corresponded to the facts of the situation. Trimborn (Centre) announced that it must be clearly understood that his party, the 'Centre', kept a perfectly free hand for the future peace negotiations. Dr. Ablass (Progressive) pointed out that although the Resolution had gained successes in the East, yet it was not an unalterable programme, and was no longer binding.

On the 15th April the Centre's 'Parlamentarische Korrespondenz' asked, Who is there who has ever thought of regarding the peace decision of the 19th July as something not to be touched or altered?' On about the same date the Freisinnige Zeitung (the organ of the Progressives) declared that the Reichstag resolution had presupposed that all the other nations had the will for an understanding . . . this presupposition has proved illusory. . . . When our enemies have such designs, our attitude to the conclusion of peace after a victorious war must be other than it would be, had our enemies been ready and prompt to go along with us.' The Lokal-Anzeiger began to wonder whether Erzberger too would not retract, and apart from him Conrad Haussmann was almost the only bourgeois politician who stood by the July Resolution.

Other signs as well as these,1 in fact, made it clear that the attitudes of German parties to the great questions of war and peace still depended on every change in the military barometer. This fact and the excessive confidence of the moment contained an element of weakness for the prosecution of the war, which can be traced, for instance, in the remark of Vorwärts- Our whole people is imbued with the feeling that if ever military events can bring peace, it will be now.'

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1 e. g. Zedlitz, who had shown signs of willingness to compromise on the question of the Prussian franchise, was forced to resign the leadership of the Free Conservatives in the third week of April.