You may be of this persuasion.  The thing one cannot escape, however, in Germany, whether one likes its manifestations or not, is the vitality, the moral and intellectual force, everywhere apparent, whether it be applied to smashing forts or staging a play.  When a people can hold back England and France with one hand and the Russian avalanche with the other, and, cut off from oversea trade and living on rations almost, yet, to take but one of the first examples, maintain the art of the theatre at a level which makes that of New York or London in the most spacious time of peace seem crude and infantile, one is confronted with a fact which a reporter in his travels must record—­a force which, as the saying goes, “must be reckoned with.”

So far as the special business of keeping the war going is concerned, this vitality, after seven months of fighting, in spite of those lists in Dorotheenstrasse, seems ample.  Here in Berlin, which is an all day’s express journey from either front, you see thousands of fit young men marching through the streets, singing and whistling; you are told of millions ready and waiting to go.  Every one seems confident that Germany will win—­indeed, with a unity and resolution which could scarcely be more complete if they were defending their last foot of territory, determined that Germany must win.

When I was in London in the autumn a man who had made a flying trip to Berlin said that the German capital made him think of a man with his feet on the table smoking a cigar and pretending to be unconcerned although he knew all the time in his heart that he was doomed.  I find little to suggest such a picture.  The thing that at once impresses the stranger, along with the apparent reserve strength, is the moral earnestness behind that strength, the passionate conviction that they are fighting a defensive fight, that they are right.  I shall not attempt to explain this here, but merely record it as a fact.  Possibly all people in all great wars believe they are right—­and that is why there are great wars.

Crossing the frontier from Rotterdam, I stopped for a day or two at Cologne.  The proprietor of the hotel, a typical, big, hearty German of the commercial class, such as you might expect to find running a brewery at home or a bank or coffee plantation in South America, came out of his office when he heard English spoken.  There are no “loose Englishmen” in Germany nowadays.

“I suppose you are surprised to see the Dom, yes?” he laughed, pointing toward the cathedral towers in whose shadow we stood.  And then—­“What do you think about the war?” I asked him what he thought.

“Well,” he said, and with the air of brushing aside what was taken for granted before considering more doubtful issues, “of course we win!”

He showed me a photograph of his son, just made an officer.  “In a few weeks,” he said, “maybe I volunteer myself.”  He was fifty-five years old, but thoroughly fit.  He doubled up a big right arm and laughingly gripped it.  “Like iron!” he boomed.  “And there are five million men like me.  Not men—­soldiers!”