Thus, therefore, Prussia elected a majority in the Reichstag, and if by some extraordinary chance the latter voted against the desire of Prussia the decree could be nullified by the Prussian representative in the Bundesrath. The King of Prussia was Emperor. He nominated the Chancellor, chief of all the administrative machinery of the state. The King of Prussia was master of the government of the Empire. Germany was a veritable Prussia enlarged. We can now distinguish the essential traits that characterized constitutional Germany on the eve of the war. There was in Germany, under the infinite complexity of written provisions, behind a deliberately effected juxtaposition of the most modern formula by the side of some of the most archaic, a living reality. It was a despotic organization that placed full power in the hands of a feudal monarch. It was, to put it in the words of President Wilson, the largest enterprise of domination that the world has ever known. * * * * * Such a system and that which made it such an anachronism could not survive the test of war and still less that of defeat. Already during the war several demands for reforms made themselves felt. In proportion as the war was prolonged and the heavier became the burdens that weighed on the people together with the sacrifices that were imposed upon them, there developed a pressure on the part of the people for recognition, for compensation, for the right to participate in a more effective fashion in the conduct of public affairs. The Reichstag appointed a commission to investigate to what extent it was possible to modify the Constitution of the Reich in conformity with the desires of the people. On his part the Emperor in a message on April 7, 1917, declared that it was the duty of the Chancellor to satisfy the exigencies of new times with every means appropriate; and to reconstruct the constitutional edifice in such a way as to insure a free and spontaneous collaboration of all the elements of the nation. The Chancellor seemed to be in accord with the Emperor on the necessity and urgency of a “new orientation.” On the 15th of May, 1917, Bethmann-Hollweg spoke of realizing a programme of “trusting collaboration of the Emperor and the nation.” On July 19, 1917, Michaelis foreshadowed the establishment of a close contact between a government and parliament, the creation of a bond of mutual confidence between the government of the Empire and the Reichstag, in the sense that the management of various affairs should be entrusted to men who, aside from their professional abilities, would enjoy the full confidence of the great parties in the popular branch of the government.