POSTSCRIPT OF 1919

Under the guidance of the hypothesis we found reason to believe that the morale of the German people was of a special kind, and essentially dependent for the remarkable vigour it then showed upon the possibility of continued successful aggression. This suggestion was borne out by the long series of offensive movements, increasing in weight and culminating in the spring of 1918, in the great attacks on which Germany broke herself. From the way in which these movements were announced and expected it became evident that during an enforced defensive the morale of Germany declined more rapidly than did that of her opponents. This was the essential confirmation of the psychological view we had put forward. Apart from all question of the strategic and merely military advantages of the offensive it was plain that Germany’s moral need for the posture of attack was peculiarly and char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly great. That she continually and convincedly—though perhaps injudiciously—declared the war to be one of defence only, that she had {225} everything to hope from disunion among her enemies and little to fear from disunion among her friends, that she was in assured possession of the most important industrial districts of France, that she had successfully brought into something like equilibrium the resistance to the effects of the blockade, and had proved like her animal prototypes only to be more fierce and eager when she was hungry—all of these strong objective reasons for fighting a defensive delaying war were over-whelmed by the crucially important requirement of keeping the aggressive spirit strung up to the highest pitch. The fighting spirit must be that of attack and conquest, or it would break altogether. Our hypothesis, therefore, enabled us to foresee that she would have to go on torturing her declining frame with one great effort after another until she had fought