An American friend told me of how he struggled toward the _Schloss_, but in the jam of humanity got only as far as the monument of Frederick the Great. There a youth threw his hat in the air and cried: "_Hock der Krieg, Hock der Krieg_!" (Hurrah for the war). That was the spirit that raged like a prairie fire. An old man next to him looked him full in the eyes. "_Der Krieg ist eine ernste Sache, Junge_!" (War is a serious matter, young man), he said and turned away. He was in the crowd, but not of it. His note was discordant. They snarled at him and pushed him roughly. They gloried in the thought of war. They were certain that they were invincible. All that they bad been taught, all the influences on their lives convinced them that nothing could stand before the _furor teutonicus_ once it was turned loose. Delirious days when military bands blared regiment after regiment through lines of cheering thousands; whole companies deluged with flowers, long military trains festooned with blossoms and greenery rolling with clock-like regularity from the stations amid thunderous cheers. Sad partings were almost unknown, for, of course, no earthly power could withstand the onslaughts of the Kaiser's troops. God was with them--even their belts and helmets showed that. So, "Good-bye for six weeks!" The 2nd of September is Sedan Day, and in 1914 it was celebrated as never before. A great parade was scheduled, a parade which would show German prowess. Though I arrived in "Unter den Linden" two hours before the procession was due, I could not get anywhere near the broad central avenue down which it would pass. I chartered a taxi which had foundered in the throng, and perched on top. The Government, always attentive to the patriotic education of the children, had given special orders for such occasions. The little ones were brought to the front by the police, and boys were even permitted to climb the sacred Linden trees that they might better see what the Fatherland had done. The triumphal column entered through the Kaiser Arch of the Brandenburger Tor, and bedlam broke loose during the passing of the captured cannon of Russia, France, and Belgium--these last cast by German workmen at Essen and fired by Belgian artillerists against German soldiers at Liege. The gates of Paris! Then the clear-cut German official reports became vague for a few days about the West, but had much of Hindenburg and victory in the East. Democracies wash their dirty linen in public, while absolute governments tuck theirs out of sight, where it usually disappears, but sometimes unexpectedly develops spontaneous combustion.