During the first few days following the breaking off of negotiations the German government hesitated, not knowing what course to pursue. The politicians and diplomats evidently thought that the principal objects had been accomplished and that there was no reason for coveting our signatures. The military men were ready, in any event, to break through the lines drawn by the German Government at Brest-Litovsk. Professor Krigge, the advisor of the German delegation, told a member of our delegation that a German invasion of Russia under the existing conditions was out of the question. Count Mirbach, then at the head of the German missions at Petrograd, went to Berlin with the assurance that an agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners of war had been satisfactorily reached. But all this did not in the least prevent General Hoffmann from declaring on the fifth day after the Brest-Litovsk negotiations had been broken off--that the armistice was over, antedating the seven-day period from the time of the last Brest-Litovsk session. It were really out of place to dilate here on the moral indignation caused by this piece of dishonesty. It fits in perfectly with the general state of diplomatic and military morality of the ruling classes. The new German invasion developed under circumstances most fatal for Russia. Instead of the week's notice agreed upon, we received notice only two days in advance. This circumstance intensified the panic in the army which was already in state of chronic dissolution. Resistance was almost unthinkable. The soldiers could not believe that the Germans would advance after we had declared the state of war at an end. The panicky retreat paralyzed the will even of such individual detachments as were ready to make a stand. In the workingmen's quarters of Petrograd and Moscow, the indignation against the treacherous and truly murderous German invasion reached a pitch of greatest intensity. In these alarming days and nights, the workers were ready to enlist in the army by the ten thousand. But the matter of organizing lagged far behind. Isolated tenacious detachments full of enthusiasm became convinced themselves of their instability in their first serious clashes with German regulars. This still further lowered the country's spirits. The old army had long ago been hopelessly defeated and was going to pieces, blocking all the roads and byways. The new army, owing to the country's general exhaustion, the fearful disorganization of industries and the means of transportation, was being got together too slowly. Distance was the only serious obstacle in the way of the German invasion.