B.-H.: If the rest of the war-map could remain as it is, it wouldn't be worth her while to insist on unconditional terms. But gallery play in Stamboul is useless once our line gives in the West. KAISER (_to_ HINDENBURG): If we sacrifice the Roumanian line and hold one across Austria instead, make a stand in Constantinople, and concentrate all our forces on the Western Front, how long can we go on for? H.: To the autumn of 1918, when it will all collapse like a house of cards. KAISER (_to_ B.-H.): The siege of Constantinople then would not be mere gallery play, Herr Chancellor? [Illustration: "DIE NACHT," AN INVERSION OF "DER TAG," WRITTEN JUNE, 1917, PROPHESYING THE DOOM OF GERMANY IN AUTUMN OF 1918.--"SMOKE"] [Illustration: AN ESCAPE STORY FROM "SMOKE." THE AIRSHIP ENTERING THE BLACK SEA] B.-H.: There is yet a more serious factor. We can crush or sacrifice Turkey in revolution, but before a revolution in Germany your Majesty's guns will melt like butter in the sun. KAISER: Have you not quietened the National Liberals by nominally conceding the constitutional point of veto, and in assembling and proroguing the Reichstag? B.-H.: It's not that. Neither is it the Socialists or the Left Centre. It's the agrarian classes of the Out Provinces. They already imagine that disaster has overtaken their absorption by Prussia, and thought towards decentralization must not be trusted too far. As they had least to win so they have most to lose in a war of taxation and attrition. Moreover, they fear the aftermath of fearful reprisals if the enemy carries war into Germany. KAISER: But my army, surely it can maintain its supremacy? B.-H.: We cannot spare troops to garrison railways, and once the seed is sown lines will be cut, communications interrupted, and the army--excepting the Prussians--which is sick of fighting, will dissolve. I speak, your Majesty, from a near view of facts. Three months may be short, but when Turkey goes the terms will be harder. KAISER: Turkey may go. Constantinople will not go. (_Rings._) B.-H.: The time to negotiate is now. We shall not succeed in sickening England out, and if we wait until we are right back before we ask peace, our enemies will push. (_Enter_ VON KAPELLAR.) KAISER: Von Kapellar, First Sailor of the World, you are our present hope. You have three months within which to paralyse British shipping completely--there must not remain one ship afloat. Everything comes back to this. VON K.: My Emperor, in that time I can dismember, but I cannot annihilate. Every submarine must consult opportunity. Their chief boats are convoyed. If necessary, the American and Japanese destroyer flotillas will be used against us. It would take a year before we got at her throat. Besides, she is building.