I roared with laughter at the little doctor, and told him he was looking too far ahead, as far as Brand and the German girl were concerned. This made him angry, in his humorous way, and he told me that those who don’t look ahead fail to see the trouble under their nose until they fall over it. We left the _Wein-stube_ through a fog of smoke. Another dancing girl was on the tiny stage, waving her arms and legs. An English officer, slightly fuddled, was writing a cheque for his bill and persuading the German manager to accept it. Two young French officers were staring at the dancing-girl with hostile eyes. Five young Germans were noisy round six tall bottles of _Liebfraumilch_. The doctor and I walked down to the bank of the Rhine below the Hohenzollern bridge. Our sentries were there, guarding heavy guns which thrust their snouts up from tarpaulin covers. Two German women passed, with dragging footsteps, and one said wearily, “_Ach, lieber Gott!_” The doctor was silent for some time after his long monologue. He stared across the Rhine, on whose black surface lights glimmered with a milky radiance. Presently he spoke again, and I remember his words, which were, in a way, prophetic. “These German people are broken. They _had_ to be broken. They are punished. They _had_ to be punished. Because they obeyed the call of their leaders, which was to evil, their power has been overthrown and their race made weak. You and I, an Englishman, an American, stand here, by right of victory, overlooking this river which has flowed through two thousand years of German history. It has seen the building-up of the German people, their industry, their genius, their racial consciousness. It has been in the rhythm of their poetry and has made the melody of their songs. On its banks lived the little people of German fairy-tales, and the heroes of their legends. Now there are English guns ready to fire across the water and English, French and American soldiers pacing this road along the Rhine, as victors and guards of victory. What hurt to the pride of this people! What a downfall! We must be glad of that because the German challenge to the world was not to be endured by free peoples. That is true, and nothing can ever alter its truth or make it seem false. I stand firm by that faith. But I see also, what before I did not see, that many of these Germans were but slaves of a system which they could not change, and spellbound by old traditions, old watch-words, belonging to the soul of their race, so that when they were spoken they had to offer their lives in sacrifice. High powers above them arranged their destiny, and the manner and measure of their sacrifice, and they had no voice, or strength, or knowledge, to protest--these German peasants, these boys who fought, these women and children who suffered and starved. Now it is they, the ignorant and the innocent, who must go on suffering, paying in peace for what their rulers did in war.