and were nevertheless victorious not only by reason of their own superiority but thanks also to the errors of the foe. To me, the battle of the Marne seems an example of this human blindness on a large scale. If we assume that the French themselves did not expect to win it, as several French strategists have admitted, and that the Germans lost it only through the mistake of a subordinate officer, Colonel Hentsch, whom the literature of the Marne Battle has made notorious, does not the question “Why?” seem the more insistent? Or, to take another example: In 1917 and at the beginning of 1918 the Austrians and, perhaps, the Germans as well, could have got from the Allies peace terms under which we, and the other nations now liberated, would have won far less. The Allies were disposed to make peace; some of them too much so; a clear, honest word from Vienna about Belgium, and an open breach with Germany would have softened the hearts of England and France towards Austria-Hungary. But the insincerity of the official policy pursued in Vienna and Berlin, and their incorrigible arrogance and blindness, helped the Allies to hold out and to conquer. Who, at the beginning of the war, expected the overthrow of Russia and the establishment of a Communist Republic? Who foresaw the Revolution that came forth from the war and altered the political face of Europe and of the whole world? Shakespeare has put it very wisely:—
Yet a belief that Providence watches over us and the world is no reason for fatalistic inactivity but rather for optimistic concentration of effort, for a strict injunction to work determinedly, to work for an idea. Only thus are we entitled to expect the so-called “lucky accident” that springs from the inner logic of life and history, and to trust in God’s help. In my work abroad and throughout my life I remember case after case in which my plans failed, and the result was nevertheless better than my original design. How impatient I was, for example, whenever the Allied armies made slow progress; yet the very protraction of the war enabled us to make ourselves known by propaganda and to enter the field with our own forces! Had the Allies triumphed speedily we should not have won our independence. Austria would have
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