"Do you still think Germany can win?" I asked.
"No!" He fairly spat at me. "We can't beat you now. But you can't beat us! This war will go on until your pig-headed Lloyd George gives in."
"Or," I suggested gently, "until your pig-headed Junker Government gives in."
"They never will!" he said, a little proudly, but sadly too. "Every man will be killed in the army—my two sons, all—and we will starve before it is all over!"
The Germans no longer hope for a big victory.
The German citizens, in that section at least, had given up hope of being able to score the big victory that was in every mind when the war started. What the outcome would be did not seem to be clear to them. All they knew was that the work meant misery for them, and that, as far as they could see, this misery would continue on and on indefinitely. They had lost confidence in the newspapers. It was plain to be seen that the stereotyped rubber-stamped kind of official news that got into the papers did not satisfy them. Many's the time I heard bitter curses heaped upon the Hohenzollerns by lips that were flabby and colorless from starvation.
News of unrestricted submarine warfare.
There was much excitement among them when, early in 1917, the news spread that unrestricted submarine warfare was to be resumed. Old Fritz came over to me with a newspaper in his hand and his eyes fairly popping with excitement.
"This will end it!" he declared. "We are going to starve you out, you English."
"You'll bring America in," I told him.