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."
He grasped the arms of his chair and made one or two efforts to rise, but could not do so.
