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Although Bismarck gave the Germans a Constitution and a Parliament after the Franco-Prussian War as a sop for their sacrifices in that campaign, he never intended the Reichstag to be a Parliament in the sense in which the institution is understood in Great Britain. What Bismarck gave the Germans was a debating society and a safety-valve.
Night and day there was an immense throng gazing at the doors and windows of the palace in which lodged the predestined being, in hope of being able to say, "I have seen him." The French waited on him with idolatry. The Germans had a complex feeling about him, in which admiration was stronger than hate.
If the unification could have been achieved in 1848 instead of in 1870, if the free and generous idealism of that epoch could have triumphed, as it deserved to, if Germans had not bartered away their souls for the sake of the kingdom of this world, we might have been spared this last and most terrible act in the bloody drama of European history.
It was from this side chiefly that the attackers came Germans in the cause of the Holy Roman Empire, mercenaries of many nations that swelled the imperial hosts arrayed against Protestant Bohemia, marauding armies of Swedes, all these surged up against the walls and towers of Prague's Royal Castle.
"I think a number of us will bear out what Winckel says," O'Reilly spoke up. "For myself, and I think I speak for the other Irishmen here present and also for the forty thousand against England, but against the United States never. Not one Irishman can be counted on if it comes to a showdown against the U. S. A." "Nor very many Germans," added Winckel. "So be it," said Captain Knabe.
The desperate efforts of the Germans to hold were never relaxed, but by the evening of that day the American troops broke through their last defense and forced rapid retreat. Motor trucks were hurriedly brought up for the pursuit, and by the fifth the enemy's withdrawal became general.
The old boundary line of Bismarck is now in many instances an actual line of fire, and nowhere on this front are the Germans more than three or four miles within French territory.
The vigor with which the offensive had been pushed by the Allies caused the Germans to bring forward the bulk of their reserves, but they were unable to check the advance and lost heavily.
"After all, these 'furphies' make life worth living in the trenches," as one of our men said to me the other day. All the Germans, in a certain part of the line opposite, now firmly believe that the war is going to end on August 17th. But this is merely the gossip of the German trenches telegraphed across No Man's Land.
Does that not prove the inestimable value of earth-colored clothes? For as close as they were to us, we could distinguish nothing. This gray-green which the Germans wear is by far the best tone of khaki that I have yet seen.
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