I often asked Lieutenant von X---- what the German army thought about the future of Germany, and I do not think he suspected in the least that I had any motive except "intelligent interest." He had come to look upon me as a family institution, and without telling lies in so many words, I allowed him to believe that I felt Germany's vast superiority over the rest of the world. It is a simple thing for any woman to make any German man believe this. The only difficult thing for him to understand is that a creature can be benighted enough to have a contrary opinion. Lieutenant von X---- admitted that the German army as well as navy prayed for "The Day." He thought that Germany could "walk through France," and she, being far superior to Russia in every way, could not help but win in a war against that power, even without the help of Austria. He seemed to feel contempt for Austria and everything Austrian compared with what was German, but he said "she can be useful to us." As for England, she might be a tougher job, but it would "have to come," and with the improved Zeppelins (which England had been a "stupid-head" not to copy as well as she could) and the Krupp secrets, there was no doubt who would come out on top: Germany, the one power on earth who deserved by her gloriousness to be over all others. America, too, eventually must become Germanized, as Lieutenant von X---- believed she was already well on the way to be, with her growing German population, immense German financial interests, and influential newspapers. The plans for American conquest were already mapped out by the German War Office, who never left anything to chance. He said that this was no secret, or he would not mention it. There was once a hope that Germany and England might make a combination against the United States, but that had been abandoned, he said. Once I should have taken this for a joke, and also the expectation that when France was conquered (with Belgium thrown in as a matter of course) Antwerp and Dunkirk and Calais would all be German, becoming the strongest military ports in the world; but I had learned better now. I knew that Lieutenant von X----, who seldom originated any ideas of his own, was simply repeating to me the sort of talk he heard among his brother officers....