In the midst of our exclusively German environment in those immortal hours--we could now neither telegraph nor telephone in anything except German, nor even read in anything except that language, for foreign newspapers were no longer arriving--I must confess I was filled with no little prepossession in Germany’s favor. The Kaiser’s case seemed not only good. On the biased evidence available--we had, of course, no other--it even seemed strong. Such fragmentary dispatches from abroad as the Military Censor, already enthroned, permitted to be printed were naturally only those which resolutely bolstered up the fiction of "our just cause." Of the stealthy plot to violate Belgium we had no glimmer of an inkling. We knew only of the "Russian mobilization menace," of the Kaiser’s wrecked efforts in the direction of "peace," and of the reluctance with which impeccable Germany was stripping for the fray in defense of her honor, rights and imperiled territorial integrity. Convinced as I had long been of the War Party’s lust for "the Day," a setting appeared to have been contrived which put Germany in a plausible, if not altogether blameless, light. It was mass-suggestion, as a Berlin psychologist would describe it, all-hypnotizing in its effects. It was not until five days afterward, when I had crossed the German frontier, reached Dutch territory and come up with the truth that the curtain was lifted and I could look out upon what seemed, after ten days of "inspired" information in Berlin, like country which my eyes had never seen before.... [Illustration: In front of the Royal Castle, Berlin, waiting for announcement of mobilization, August 1st, 1914.]