Brand had no need to answer this denunciation, for Elsa von Kreuzenach broke into her father’s speech impatiently.
“You are too bad, Father! Captain Brand does not wish to spend the evening in political argument. You know what Franz and I think. We believe that all the evil of the war was caused by silly old hatred and greedy rivalries. Isn’t the world big enough for the free development of all its peoples? If not, then life is not worth living, and the human race must go on killing each other until the world is a wilderness.”
“I agree,” said Brand, looking at Elsa. “The peoples of Europe must resist all further incitements to make war on each other. Surely the American President has given us all a new philosophy by his call for a League of Nations, and his promise of peace without vengeance, with the self-determination of peoples.”
“That is true,” said Franz von Kreuzenach. “The Allies are bound by Wilson’s Fourteen Points. We agreed to the Armistice on that basis, and it is because of the promise that lies in those clauses—the charter of a New World—that the German people, and the Austrians—accept their defeat with resignation, and look forward with hope—in spite of our present ruin—to a greater liberty and to a more beautiful democracy.”
“Yes,” said Elsa, “what my brother says, Captain Brand, explains the spirit with which your English soldiers have been received on the Rhine. Perhaps you expected hostility, hatred, black looks? No, the German people welcome you, and your American comrades, because the bitterness of defeat is softened by the knowledge that there is to be no more bloodshed—alas, we are drained of blood!—and that the Peace will begin a nobler age in history, for all of us.”
The General shifted in his chair so that it scraped the polished boards. A deep wave of colour swept up to his bald head.
“Defeat?” he said. “My son and daughter talk of defeat!... There was no defeat. The German Armies were invincible to the last. They never lost a battle. They fell back not because of their own failure but because the heart of the German people was sapped by the weakness of hunger, caused by the infamous English blockade, which starved our women and children. Ja, even our manhood was weakened by starvation. Still more, our civilians were poisoned by a pestilential heresy learnt in Russia, a most damnable pacifism, which destroyed their will to win. Our glorious Armies were stabbed in the back by anarchy and treachery.”
“It is defeat, sir, all the same,” said Franz von Kreuzenach, with grim deference, to his father. “Let us face the tragedy of the facts. As an officer of the rearguard defence, I have to admit, too, that the German Armies were beaten in the field. Our war machines were worn out and disintegrated, by the repeated blows that struck us. Our man-power was exhausted, and we could no longer resist the weight of the Allied Armies. The Americans had immense reserves of men to throw in against us. We could only save ourselves by retreat. Field Marshal von Hindenburg, himself, has admitted that.”
The General’s face was no longer flushed with angry colour. He was very white, with a kind of dead look, except for the smouldering fire of his eyes. He spoke in a low, choking voice, in German.
“If I had known that a son of mine, bearing the name of Franz von Kreuzenach, would have admitted the defeat of the German Army, before an officer of an enemy power, I would have strangled him at birth.”