In the conditions of the armistice the whole nation conceived itself to have been betrayed and deceived. Whether this feeling was justified is not the part of the historian to decide. It is enough that it existed. It was confirmed and strengthened by the fact that the almost unanimous opinion of neutral lands, including even those that had been the strongest sympathizers of the Allied cause, condemned the armistice terms unqualifiedly, both on ethical and material grounds. It is ancient human experience that popular disaffection first finds its scapegoat in the government, and history repeated itself here. The unreflecting masses forgot for the moment the government's powerlessness. It saw only the abandonment of rich German lands to the enemy, the continuance of the "hunger-blockade" and, worst of all, the retention by the enemy of the German prisoners. Of all the harsh provisions of the armistice, none other caused so much mental and moral anguish as the realization that, while enemy prisoners were to be sent back to their families, the Germans, many of whom had been in captivity since the first days of the war, must still remain in hostile prison-camps. The authority of the government that accepted these terms was thus seriously shaken at the very outset. The government was as seriously affected materially as morally by the armistice. During the whole of the last year food and fuel conditions had been gravely affected by limited transportation facilities. Now, with an army of several millions to be brought home in a brief space of time, five thousand locomotives and 150,000 freight cars had to be delivered up to the enemy. This was more than a fifth of the entire rolling stock possessed by Germany at this time. Moreover, nearly half of all available locomotives and cars were badly in need of repairs, and a considerable percentage of these were in such condition that they could not be used at all. Nor was this all. Although nothing had been stipulated in the armistice conditions regarding the size or character of the engines to be surrendered, only the larger and more powerful ones were accepted. One month later it had been found necessary to transport 810 locomotives to the places agreed upon for their surrender, and of these only 206 had been accepted. Of 15,720 cars submitted in the same period, only 9,098 had been accepted. The result was a severe over-burdening of the German railways.