In November Wangenheim began discussing this subject. It was part of Germany’s system, he told me, not only to be completely prepared for war, but also for peace. “A wise general, when he begins his campaign, always has at hand his plans for a retreat, in case he is defeated,” said the German Ambassador. “This principle applies just the same to a nation beginning war. There is only one certainty about war--and that is that it must end some time. So, when we plan war, we must consider also a campaign for peace.” But Wangenheim was interested then in something more tangible than this philosophic principle. Germany had immediate reasons for desiring the end of hostilities, and Wangenheim discussed them frankly and cynically. He said that Germany had prepared for only a short war because she had expected to crush France and Russia in two brief campaigns, lasting not longer than six months. Clearly this plan had failed, and there was little likelihood that Germany would win the war. Wangenheim told me this in so many words. Germany, he added, would make a great mistake if she persisted in fighting the war to exhaustion, for such a fight would mean the permanent loss of her colonies, her mercantile marine, and her whole economic and commercial status. “If we don’t get Paris in thirty days, we are beaten,” Wangenheim had told me in August, and, though his attitude changed somewhat after the battle of the Marne, he made no attempt to conceal the fact that the great rush campaign had collapsed, that all the Germans could now look forward to was a tedious, exhausting war, and that all which they could obtain from the existing situation would be a drawn battle. “We have made a mistake this time,” Wangenheim said, “in not laying in supplies for a protracted struggle; it was an error, however, that we shall not repeat; next time we shall store up enough copper and cotton to last for five years.”