experience the horrors of war. Their wives and children, mothers and fathers felt them too. Is it conceivable that, after such experience, a considerable majority, at least, of honest minds should not espouse the new ideal, the ideal of democracy and humanity, and should not strive for regeneration? Along the whole line the trend of events is against the old régime. This is the true meaning of the war and of the post-war era; for the war has freed even Germany from the old régime and, in her freedom, Germany will escape from her spiritual isolation, will win a moral victory over Bismarckianism and will return to the ideals of her Goethe, her Kant and, above all, to those of her Herder and Beethoven.
In London Again.
These and like thoughts were in my mind as we drew near the English coast on November 29, 1918. On reaching harbour, and at the railway terminus in London, military and diplomatic honours reminded me once more that I was the Head of a State. That evening I spent with my dear friends and fellow-workers, Steed and Seton-Watson. But what a difference between the position then and the position in May 1917 when I started from London on my—unforeseen—journey round the world! Yet my cares had not grown fewer; for, if old cares had lifted, new cares had filled their places.
In London I stayed till December 6 and saw many friends, Dr. Burrows, Lord Bryce, Mr. R. F. Young, Lady Paget and others; and, at a lunch to which Mr. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, invited me, I met a number of political personages, among them Lord Milner, Mr. Churchill and the Secretary of the King, for the King himself was not then in London. The Germans had just proposed to the Allies that a commission should be set up to investigate the question of war guilt. Naturally we talked of the whole political outlook, the end of the war and the task of the impending Peace Conference, though my conversation with Mr. Balfour turned chiefly on the philosophy of religion. Mr. Churchill showed great interest in Russia and in our Legions there, and he was especially pleased that I had stopped Bolshevist agitation among our men without using force. I could not help comparing the standpoint of British with that of German statesmen. What a difference between a really constitutional and Parliamentary spirit and the declining Caesarism of Russia, Prussia, and Austria!
