Nor is there any more reliable guide, since the events that have taken place for three years past have demonstrated the absolute accuracy of the Pangermanist outgivings anterior to the war. Knowing what the Germans are going to do, we can deduce therefrom the best means of opposing it. If this method had been followed, no serious error would have been committed by the Allies. They would have understood that Germany was making war in behalf of the Hamburg-Persian Gulf enterprise,—which was intended to supply her with the instruments of world-domination; that, consequently, the Danube front, _which the Allies held_, must be retained at whatever cost, which would have been, comparatively speaking, very easy, if they had recognized in time this imperative necessity. Now, if the Allies had retained their hold of the Danube front, the war would have been over nearly two years ago. It is, in fact, solely because they did not grasp the necessity of thus holding it, that the Germans have been able to carry out their Eastern plan and to constitute the Pan-Germany which must now be destroyed in order to avoid the defeat of civilization, and eventual slavery. To effect this destruction is infinitely easier than is generally believed, on the condition that the most is made of the causes tending to the internal dissolution of Pan-Germany. But, to understand these available causes, familiarity with the Pangermanist scheme is indispensable. It is urgently necessary, therefore, to put an end to this intolerable condition, namely, that, while the Allies have an extraordinary opportunity to become accurately acquainted with the whole programme of procedure at Berlin, as contained in a multitude of German documents,—that is to say, the real objects of Germany in the war,—while they have this opportunity, they go on acting and arguing as if that programme did not exist. It is this condition which proves most clearly the extraordinary and enduring credulity which the Allies exhibit in face of the endless German intrigues. II THE CREDULITY OF THE ALLIES The heads of the Allied governments, moved by the best intentions but completely taken by surprise by the war, are carrying it on far too much in accordance with the ordinary procedure of times of peace—negotiations, declarations, speeches. Notably in the gigantic palaver into which Maximalist Russia has developed, men fancy that they have acted when they have talked. The events of three years of war prove conclusively that the Boches, turning to their profit the predilection of the Allied leaders for verbal negotiations and manifestations,—a predilection complicated by ignorance of the Pangermanist scheme,—have succeeded in nullifying to an extraordinary degree the effect of the sacrifices of the Entente.