The Halle affair in March was a less crucial business, though critical enough for a time. The Saxon towns had been in a state of economic unrest that increased as the impotence of the Weimar Assembly became more obvious. Thus the smaller towns in the immediate neighbourhood of Weimar, like Erfurt and Jena, became outposts of revolution, permanently menacing the deliberations of the Assembly in the classic groves of the Ilm. Small bands of revolutionaries even penetrated Weimar itself, until the roads and railways were barred. It was some weeks before the Saxon Frei-Corps of Jagers, under General Maerker, were strong enough to attempt expeditions against the smaller Thuringian towns. And the General himself had, in these early days, more than one narrow escape. His small force was still very weak in numbers and discipline when a general strike was declared at Halle, with the avowed political object of cutting communications between the Legislature at Weimar and the Administration at Berlin. Obviously, if Weimar could be seized, or even surrounded by the revolutionaries, the parliamentary system of government must collapse and a revolutionary Saxony would divide the Prussian bureaucrats from the South German burghers. This plan--if plan it was--and not merely a process of inchoate and unconscious forces, was defeated by the Maerker expedition to Halle; and those who are interested in the outside as well as the inside of political events may learn something of what the civil war in Germany was like in the following diary of my experiences with this expedition. _Friday Afternoon._--The green room of the Weimar Theatre--now the National Assembly--and the War Minister Noske on a sofa, a big beetle-browed, bullet-headed type of German, a Bismarck Mk. II., but evidently underfed and overstrained. On a chair a sharp-nosed intelligence officer, for War Ministers must be careful these days who they see and what they say. After some talk I ask leave to go with the Government troops who are to reopen the rail to Berlin by occupying Halle. The intelligence officer demurs, but Noske good humouredly agrees to my arguments, scribbles a word or two on the back of my card, and hurries off to catch the Berlin train. He will have to spend all night going round by Chemnitz and Dresden.