No doubt they must make at Berlin the following calculation, which theoretically has something to be said for it: “If an armistice were signed, the Allied soldiers would think: ‘They are talking, therefore it means peace, and demobilization will soon follow.’ Under these conditions the effect will be the moral slackening of our adversaries.” The Germans could not ask for anything better. They would open peace negotiations with the following astute idea. To understand the manœuvre we must remember the proposals of peace which that active agent, Dr. Alfred Hermann Fried, of Vienna, was charged to throw out as a sounding-lead on the 27th December, 1915, in an article of the _Nouvelle Gazette de Zurich_, which made a great stir. These proposals were mixed up with provisoes, which would allow the discussion to be opened or broken off at any moment desired. For example, Belgium would preserve her independence, but “on condition of treaties, perhaps also of guarantees, which would render impossible a repetition of the events of 1914.” The occupied departments of France would be restored unconditionally to France, but “some small rectifications of frontiers might perhaps be desired in the interests of both parties” (_Journal de Genève_, 29th December, 1915). Assuming that the Allies committed the enormous mistake of discussing peace on such treacherous terms, Germany still entrenched behind her fronts, which would have been rendered almost impregnable, would say to the Allies, “I don’t agree with you. After all you cannot require of me that I should evacuate territories from which you are powerless to drive me. If you are not satisfied, continue the war.” As, while the negotiations were pending, all needful steps would have been taken by the German agents to aggravate the moral slackening of the soldiers of such Allied countries as might be most weary of the struggle, the huge military machine of the Entente could not again be put in motion as a whole. The real result would be, in fact, the rupture of the Anti-Germanic Coalition, and finally the conclusion of a peace more or less based on actual occupation. Berlin’s goal would thus have been reached. Finally, when the “armistice trick” shall have also failed, and the situation of Germany shall have grown still worse, we shall see Berlin play her last trump. Petitions against territorial annexations will be multiplied on the other side of the Rhine. In an underhand way they will be favoured by the Government of Berlin, which will end by saying to the Allies: “Let us stop killing each other. I am perfectly reasonable. I give up my claims on such of your territories as are occupied by my armies. Let us negotiate peace on the basis of the ‘drawn game.’”