The Germans, after
the armistice and after the peace, had no passion, as they had no
will. They were in a state of coma. The "knock-out blow" had happened
to them, and they were incapable of action. They just ceased from
action. They had been betrayed to this ruin by their military and
political rulers, but they had not vitality enough to demand vengeance
on those men. The extent of their ruin was so great that it
annihilated anger, political passion, pride, all emotion except that
of despair. How could they save something out of the remnants of the
power that had been theirs? How could they keep alive, feed their
women and children, pay their monstrous debts? They had lost their
faith as well as their war. Nothing that they had believed was true.
They had believed in their invincible armies--and the armies had bled
to death and broken. They had believed in the supreme military genius
of their war lords, and the war lords, blunderers as well as
criminals, had led them to the abyss and dropped them over.
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