Had Germany been victorious her militarism would have increased enormously.  In the summer of 1917 I spoke to several generals of high standing on the Western front, who unanimously declared that after the war armaments must be maintained, but on a very much greater scale.  They compared this war with the first Punic War.  It would be continued and its continuation be prepared for; in short, the tactics of Versailles.  The standard of violence must be planted, and would be the banner of the generals, the Pan-Germans, the Fatherland Party, etc. etc.  They thought as little about a reconciliation of the nations after the war as did the Supreme Council of Four at Versailles, and Emperor, Government and Reichstag floundered helplessly in this torrent of violent purpose.

The military spirit flourished on the Spree as it is doing now on the Seine and the Thames.  Lloyd George and Unter den Linden in Berlin.  The only difference between Foch and Ludendorff is that the one is a Frenchman and the other a German; as men they are as like as two peas.

The Entente is victorious, and many millions are delighted and declare that the policy of Might is justified.  The future only can show whether this is not a terrible mistake.  The lives of hundreds of thousands of young, hopeful men who have fallen might have been saved if in 1917 peace had been made possible for us.  The triumph of victory cannot call them back to life again.  It appears to me that the Entente has conquered too much, too thoroughly.  The madness of expiring militarism, in spite of all its orgies, has perhaps celebrated its last triumph at Versailles.

Postscript.

Taking it altogether, the real historical truth concerning the peace movement is that, in general, neither the Entente nor the ruling, all-powerful military party in Germany wished for a peace of understanding.  They both wished to be victorious and to enforce a peace of violence on the defeated adversary.  The leading men in Germany—­Ludendorff above all—­never had a genuine intention of releasing Belgium in an economic and political sense; neither would they agree to any sacrifices.  They wished to conquer in the East and the West, and their arbitrary tendencies counteracted the pacifist leaning of the Entente as soon as there were the slightest indications of it.  On the other hand, the leading men in the Entente—­Clemenceau from the first and Lloyd George later—­were firmly resolved to crush Germany, and therefore profited by the continuous German threats to suppress all pacifist movements in their own countries, always ready to prove that a peace of understanding with Berlin would be a “pact between the fox and the geese.”

Thanks to the attitude of the leading Ministers in Germany, the Entente was fully persuaded that an understanding with Germany was quite out of the question, and insisted obstinately on peace terms which could not be accepted by a Germany still unbeaten.  This closes the circular vitiosus which paralysed all negotiating activities.