Current conceptions at home remain astonishingly crude as to the position in Central Europe. The man in the street, brought up in the true milk of the word as preached by the Yellow Press, is still of opinion that Germany is as militant and as threatening as ever, and that, should we be so foolish as to stop sitting on her head, she would promptly overrun Europe again. Suggest that Germany with her fleet sunk, her merchant shipping confiscated, her colonies lost, her army disbanded, her war material surrendered, her railway system in ruins, her food shortage considerable, is hardly in a position at the moment to make an unprovoked attack on any one, and the said person hints darkly in reply at hidden divisions on the Eastern Frontier; at an alliance between the Bolshevists and the German Government; at a military menace little less serious than what existed in 1914. It is surprising that people of this type are not more in conceit with themselves after the Allied victory, and fail so completely in appreciation of what the conquering armies have done. The German legions, perfectly trained and equipped after years of preparation, and with the whole resources of the German Empire behind them, could not achieve the preliminary pounce on Paris in 1914. Is the present Republican Government in any better position to succeed where they failed? A nation broken by hunger and defeat may become a centre of disease, dangerous to its neighbours owing to the poison spread through the whole international system. But any talk of external military adventure, apart from sporadic insurrections, is absurd. The old united Germany with its strong centralised military government is a thing of the past. Instead of which we have a Germany, weak, disorganised, distracted, split into various factions each at mortal strife with the other. The position is full of danger and grave internal crisis; it may menace the foundations of European society, but the danger is disruptive and from within, not the menace of external legions. Political parties in Germany are split up into numerous and bewildering subdivisions. The Independent Socialists and Communists form a group to the extreme left, with more or less Bolshevist ideals. But, broadly speaking, there are two main sections, the democratically minded people who desire the evolution of a peaceful and constitutional republic, and the reactionaries who, while paying a certain lip-service to democratic principles, at heart detest the whole business.