By
those miscalculations they lost the war in the long run, and by other
errors they made their loss more certain.
One mistake they made was their utter callousness regarding the
psychology and temper of their soldiers and civilian population. They
put a greater strain upon them than human nature could bear, and by
driving their fighting-men into one shambles after another, while they
doped their people with false promises which were never fulfilled,
they sowed the seeds of revolt and despair which finally launched them
into gulfs of ruin. I have read nothing more horrible than the cold-
blooded cruelty of Ludendorff's Memoirs, in which, without any attempt
at self-excuse, he reveals himself as using the lives of millions of
men upon a gambling chance of victory with the hazards weighted
against him, as he admits. Writing of January, 1917, he says: "A
collapse on the part of Russia was by no means to be contemplated and
was, indeed, not reckoned upon by any one. . . Failing the U-boat
campaign we reckoned with the collapse of the Quadruple Alliance
during 1917.
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