Neither can this war be described as a national war for the German people, nor has it resulted in a German victory. Here, also, when the conspiracy of silence is broken, the net result of the war will prove to be universal ruin, bankruptcy, millions of cripples walking the streets of every German city, the loss of the goodwill of the world. “Tout est perdu sauf l’honneur,” said the French King after the disaster of Pavia. “Everything is lost, even honour,” will be the verdict of the German people after the war.
In so far, therefore, as Prussian reaction was hitherto based on the glamour of victory, that glamour is dispelled. The Hohenzollerns were supposed to be the unsurpassed practitioners of _Realpolitik_. They have only proved reckless and romantic visionaries. The Prussian Government was supposed to be a marvellously efficient instrument. Its efficiency has mainly shown itself in wanton destruction. The Prussian Government was supposed to be the perfect type of a stable government. Its work of five hundred years has been destroyed in three years. The Germans had sold their birthright to the Hohenzollern for a mess of pottage. They have lost their birthright, but they have not secured the pottage. The German people had entered into tacit contract. The rulers have broken the contract. The German people were ready to surrender their personal liberty for the advantages which the contract gave them. They preferred the security of despotism to the risks of liberty. But the German people have discovered that the security was illusory, that the advantages were negative, and that the risks of despotism are infinitely greater than the perils of liberty.
But, even granting that the prestige and glamour of the Hohenzollern Monarchy are dispelled, we shall be told that it does not necessarily follow that a revolution would have any chances of success. For it may still be objected that a revolution is impossible under modern conditions of warfare, that under those conditions all the advantages are with the Government and are not with the people, that it has become very much easier to-day than in a previous generation to stamp out a rebellion, and that the risks are very much greater.