One more sentence stands out in his statement: "The health of the German nation cannot be restored except by truth,

The people who made such a violent demonstration around Hindenburg the other day in order to prevent his having an opportunity to tell the truth, should take these words to heart.

Thereupon, Hindenburg in his old Prussian way, two fingers raised aloft, takes the oath. Ludendorff follows him. Then the old Marshal sits at the little witness table, which is far too small for his gigantic figure, and reads his reply to the questions that have been transmitted to him. We naturally expected that he would take up the cudgels for his army and his comrades, and that his testimony would indirectly favor the old kingdom and the old army. This special pleading was courteously interrupted by the president. The first time that the president's bell sounded, Hindenburg hesitated. He was not expecting an interruption. But when Gothein in a very tactful and courteous way indicated why he had called the witness to order, he bowed with obvious comprehension. The second, third, and fourth interruptions of the president, therefore, did not surprise him. The chairman, with a few words of caution, quickly silenced a slight protest from the hearers. Ludendorff's first remarks were similarly interrupted. 'Will the gentlemen in the galleries kindly keep quiet?' No, the Pan-Germans will not. It is not Hindenburg nor Ludendorff, but Professor Schäfer, who is present in an expert capacity, who causes a serious interruption. He protests against the rulings of the presiding officer, which, to be perfectly truthful, have been more than tactful. Gothein's few words of justification are followed by a still sharper protest. Thereupon, Gothein interrupts the sit

ting, and calls upon the Committee of Inquiry to decide whether this interference can be tolerated.

During this recess, lively debates arise among the auditors. Hindenburg and Ludendorff, entrusted with supreme military power, have begun to criticize most vigorously the political leadership of the old government. They charge it with having been weak and irresolute. One would almost fancy that it was not the army but the ministry that lost the war. BethmannHollweg is deeply angry, as one can easily observe. It looks as though he would reply to these charges, which are certainly not justified in this instance. With all due respect to Hindenburg, the case was not as he presented it.

The situation was by no means as simple as it was made to appear in this soldier's catechism. Hindenburg's reasoning was that the political leadership was weak, the social democracy was a disaster, and that the army itself was consequently powerless. Result, Germany is a thing of the past. This naïve interpretation of history will be discussed later. Gothein was quite right in refusing to accept it as evidence.

The recess continued some time. Hindenburg, after putting on a great pair of glasses and fumbling in his papers a few minutes, rose and stood by the side of Ludendorff conversing with the president of the National Assembly, Dietrich, and with General Barcenwuffer. After fifteen minutes pause the committee reappears. With but one dissenting voice they disapprove of Professor Schäfer's interruption. He attempts to protest again, but remains unheeded.

For already Hindenburg has asked permission to make a brief explanation. He has been informed that the statement he had just read was interpreted as an attack upon the old ad

ministration. He did not intend that. He was quite well aware how conscientiously the men in power had worked, and the great obstacles they had found in their way. He felt called upon by his sense of honor to emphasize this.

Now Ludendorff speaks. He sits down at Hindenburg's right hand at the witness table, with a voluminous manuscript before him, and reads his statement. His great horn spectacles do not harmonize with his countenance. Still less do they harmonize with his words. He begins with a hymn of praise for the highest Lord of War, whom he does not conceive to be the Almighty in heaven, but William the Second. From his purely military standpoint, even our statecraft was not at fault. England, he thinks, was the moving force behind the war. In order to weaken England, the army had to insist upon the submarine campaign as soon as it was clear that victory could not be won on land because of the superiority of our opponents in munitions and soldiers. But the morale of the German army was unbroken.

In spite of this presentation of events, which certainly constituted a mere expression of personal opinions in several instances, Ludendorff was not interrupted by the chairman until he began to argue in defense of the military press bureau and the censorship. "That is something to be considered later.' But Ludendorff will not listen. He insists on showing that the army staff was always in full accord with the former government, and he considers it imperative to prove the fact beyond question. He even thinks it necessary to emphasize his words by pounding the table. However, he is almost immediately interrupted again when he sails into the attitude of the majority parties. Ludendorff seems bewildered.

VOL. 17-NO. 862

'Mere matters of opinion!' 'I beg pardon. What do you mean by "mere matters of opinion"?" The question seems rather challenging, but after Gothein's calm explanation the General yields.

So we come to the end of the first group of questions, intended to show from what date the higher army command considered the submarine campaign an immediate necessity.

Ludendorff was just addressing himself to the second group of questions, when Gothein begged him to wait a moment until the question could be repeated to those present. It was: Was the higher army command informed of the arguments against the submarine campaign? Why did it decide that these objections must be overruled?' Before Ludendorff begins his reply, Professor Schücking read an exceedingly able report from Minister von Haniel, who was then in America, to Ambassador von Troitler. One sentence from this report suffices: 'England thinks that the advantage of America's aid will more than compensate the Allies for any dangers they will incur through an unrestricted submarine campaign.' In spite of this report, supported as it was by convincing corroborative evidence and by other reports of a similar character, the higher army command considered the submarine campaign a necessity.

Ludendorff has laid his spectacles on the table. He strokes his moustache rapidly. Is he nervous or angry? Hindenburg is neither nervous nor angry. He sits calmly without moving, leaning back against one arm of the chair, and listens attentively. The newspaper artists profit by his happy pose.

Questions three, four, and five relate to the assumption that President Wilson's appeal for peace was suggested by Great Britain, and to ascertaining

whether the progress of these overtures, and in particular whether Bernstorff's telegrams, were known to the higher army command. Finally-'Did the higher army command believe that England could be forced to make peace through a submarine campaign?' The last question, which tended to establish a difference of opinion between Bethmann-Hollweg and Ludendorff, was omitted after a short statement by the former Chancellor.

Ludendorff resumes. We hear the word Verdun. Gloomy memories of the war again rise before our vision.

Several new documents are read, intended to fix responsibility upon the old administration. They include the report of an interview with Hindenburg in which the General admitted that he knew very little of the progress of the Wilson overtures, and in particular, that he had never heard of the most important of them. BethmannHollweg waits until he is questioned by the chairman before replying. He then replies, this time not very convincingly, that he had said all that was necessary regarding that in his letter to Prince Max of Baden, and that apparent inconsistencies were explained by the distinction between 'peace overtures' and 'peace negotiations.' These fine distinctions, unhappily, seem arbitrary and trifling when used in connection with the fearful tragedy of our defeat.

Schücking read the letter from the Chancellor to Prince Max of Baden, written in October, 1918. It contained a very exhaustive explanation of Bethmann's policy, and stated that the higher army command had desired a change of Chancellors as early as 1917, and had started an agitation for that purpose, because Bethmann-Hollweg was thought desirous of making peace. Newspaper articles, attacks and defenses, from that exciting period,

were again brought to light. The session had already lasted three hours when Bethmann-Hollweg used a single expression which embraced all the illomen of the war for Germany. He spoke of the 'fatuous over-confidence that possessed us all.'

What was the need of more discussion? He had told the whole story. But we now await Ludendorff's

answer.

Ludendorff replies that the article by Professor von Schulze-Gavernitz to which both Hindenburg's statement and the letter of BethmannHollweg referred, was in his opinion, 'an infamous lie.' Gothein calls him to order sharply but Lundendorff keeps on: 'I want to say here in public that the higher army command has always conducted itself in a spirit of the most absolute loyalty to the imperial cabinet. That must be stated here in order to nail the lies that are constantly being circulated for the purpose of making us appear guilty for all our misfortunes.'

In short, abrupt, vigorous sentences he reads the instructions and reports that support his view. But he does not prove his case.

No one has doubted his good intentions and his zealous efforts. But is all the criticism of Ludendorff's influence upon our public policy 'an infamous lie'? The General refuted himself immediately afterwards when referring to the differences of opinion between himself and Count Bernstorff. That was a conflict between two contradictory schools of thought. It was a conflict between peace and war.

Ludendorff demanded with passionate agitation that the charges that had been made against him before the Committee of Inquiry, and especially those presented by Count Bernstorff, should be submitted to the judgment of the whole German nation.

[Corriere della Sera, December 24, 1919] D'ANNUNZIO FALLS FROM GRACE

THE history of the Fiume incident makes sad reading, although, out of sympathy with the authors and regard for the wishes of the government, we have touched but lightly many facts in our accounts of that episode. We wish to pass over rapidly the days and the hours of the unhappy story and to summarize as briefly as possible the tale of the tragic chronicle without lingering upon scenes and words from which the eye and the mind instinctively recoil. A beacon fire that, promised to lighten the land has sunk into a heap of smoky ashes; a will that strove to scale the empyrean, promises to exhaust itself now in a labyrinth of self-contradiction and puerile caprice. It is painful to lose land and sea, fortune and power; it is humiliating and distressing to pass, from riches to poverty; but no other tragedy compares with that of the fall of a great spirit from the realm of high enterprise and lofty aspiration to the depths of petty intrigue and dubious expedients. D'Annunzio betook himself to Fiume in the name of Italy and of Fiume. He is remaining there defiantly, against the will of Fiume and of Italy, supported only by the loyalty of a few pretorians, obstinately insisting upon impossibilities that every passing day makes more absurd. The verdict of history upon himself and his enterprise still wavers in the balance. The situation might even now be saved if the poet leader could resolve upon a supreme and austere effort of self-renunciation. Anguish and hope mingle in the painful sympathy with which we view the crisis.

We do not join those who repudiate and disparage their former hero. The intellect and genius and the glory of

this man rest secure. That knightly gallantry with which, when past fifty, he rivaled, in a war where few emerged from the obscurity of the millions, the most brilliant deeds of our youthful heroes, will cast eternal glamour over his name. His expedition to Fiume violated military discipline and civil obligations, but a man of his temperament could not appreciate his error. Ideas of the supremacy of law and governments, and of the subordination of the individual to society as a whole, are foreign to such a mind, peopled as it is with the heroes of legend and incapable of that just appreciation of concrete facts which would have hampered its own creative faculty. The people of Italy appreciate those qualities of temperament well enough to understand the innocence of his intentions. Inasmuch as his venture was inspired by the highest ideal - his patriotic devotion to Italy and to Fiume our people trusted that time and good fortune and that intuitive wisdom which sometimes inspires poets, might in some unforeseen way, prevent the evils that properly follow defiance of public authority. Indeed, even the government, expressing this sentiment of the people, showed the greatest magnanimity toward a citizen who, though technically a rebel, was at heart loyal to his country. It negotiated with him as though he were an independent ruler and offered him reasonable concession and guarevery anty in order to render easy his return to the path of duty.

We have previously discussed this episode in our columns, urging sobriety of judgment and wisdom of action. This counsel is too often taken in ill part by the gentlemen beyond the armistice boundary. We have not been the only ones to urge them to submit to the orders of the government with the dignity of citizens and the obedi

ence of soldiers. Without such submission, citizens become a mob and soldiers become bandits. However, little by little, anxiety and distrust have seized on all. D'Annunzio and his followers turned a deaf ear to the admonitions of their fellow citizens and lost their support. From that time on, the outcome was as tragic as it was easy to foresee. Two interpretations might be placed upon D'Annunzio's enterprise. Either the seizure of Fiume was an impulsive adventure, in which case the occupation of the city should have been brief, and he should have withdrawn last September, when everyone in Italy and Fiume was applauding his deed, and when even other nations admired its unexpected audacity. Or, on the other hand, his action was a premeditated political move, and in this case it must show solid grounds for its justification. A mere fantastic adventure cannot maintain itself before the world for three months and more.

Unhappily, D'Annunzio's enterprise speedily revealed the last of these qualities. His own temperament, inspired by imagination rather than cool calculation, betrayed itself in every word and act. A sort of Fiume mythology grew up. Fiume, a sacred city, was destined of its own impulse to redeem the world. The entire universe was groaning under an alleged AngloSaxon tyranny. Quarnaro was to carry liberty to the remotest ends of the earth to the Egyptians, the Irish, the Negroes to everyone except, strange to say, the neighboring Slavic people. The quarrel of the Commander of Fiume with the head of the Italian Government degenerated into a common display of Billingsgate unworthy of a cause that professed such high ideals. D'Annunzio developed into an opponent of Lloyd George and Wilson and the Peace Conference. He

personified Poetry fighting History, Illusion face to face with Fact. What material resources did he have with which to win? We heard rumors of landings in Italy and in Dalmatia, of revolutions, daring assaults, Croat insurrections; and of the creation of new republics, dictatorships, and presidencies throughout the territory of Fiume and Dalmatia. These fictions had no basis of fact and they bear a suggestive resemblance to the exploits of captains of fortune in the days of the Renaissance. The only actual incident was an ill-advised and indecisive landing at Zara. The D'Annunzio gentlemen proclaimed the rights of the people and waved the banner of selfdetermination. determination. But these were to apply only to Fiume. Such rights had no validity for the Slavs. So we had contradiction heaped on contradiction. D'Annunzio who had gone to Fiume to protect the ballots of the people and the authority of the local government, rebelled against the decisions of that government and abrogated the very laws which he had pledged himself to defend.

Last Sunday he published a statement in a Fiume newspaper, that will produce a sentiment of profound anguish and regret in the heart of everyone who reads it. You see the man isolated, angry, and yet not without generosity even toward those who have abandoned him. Old comrades have deserted his standard. To him they are ungrateful cowards. He recalls the pledges of loyalty, the frank allegiance, the applause, and the devotion that inspired them before. He appeals for a return of days that cannot be recalled; he dreams of combat; he refuses to understand that the spirit which dominates these drab days in Fiume is not the spirit of treason but of loyalty. The Italians who followed him in body or in spirit last September