The success of this strategy of peace depended on a stern disavowal of the illiberal programmes of groups within the Allied countries and a sympathetic attitude toward the most democratic programmes of groups within the enemy Powers. Anything which weakened either this disavowal or this sympathy would imperil our American case. As potential allies in this strategy the American government had within the enemies’ gates the followers of Scheidemann who said at the last sitting of the Reichstag: “If the Entente Powers should renounce all claims for annexation and indemnity and if the Central Powers should insist on continuing the war, a revolution will certainly result in Germany.” It is not inconceivable that the American government and the German socialists had at the back of their minds the same kind of a just peace. The fact that the German socialists were not opposing the German government did not mean that any peace move in which the former were interested was necessarily a sinister Hohenzollern intrigue. The bitterest enemies of Hollweg were not the radicals but the Pan-Germans themselves. It is they who were said to be circulating manifestoes through the army threatening revolution unless their programme of wholesale annexations is carried out. Whatever liberal reservoir of power there is in Germany, therefore, remains in the socialist ranks. If there is any chance of liberal headway against the sinister Pan-German campaign it is through this nucleus of liberal power. American strategy, if it has to find a liberal leverage in Germany, will have to choose the socialist group as against the Pan-Germans. It is not absolutely necessary to assume that the support of the Chancellor by the socialist majority is permanent. It is unplausible that the Scheidemann group coöperates with the Government for peace merely to consolidate the Junker and military class in power after the war. It is quite conceivable that the socialist majority desires peace in order to have a safe basis for a liberal overturn. Revolution, impossible while the Fatherland is in danger, becomes a practicable issue as soon as war is ended. A policy of aiding the Government in its pressure toward peace, in order to be in a tactical position to control the Government when the war-peril was ended, would be an extremely astute piece of statesmanship. There is no evidence that the German socialists are incapable of such far-sighted strategy. Certainly the “German peace” of a Scheidemann is bound to be entirely different from the “German peace” of a Hindenburg. This difference is one of the decisive factors of the American strategy. To ignore it is to run the risk of postponing and perhaps obstructing the settlement of the war.