Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/250

 The respect due to officialdom was shaken in its foundations by the heavy burden of the central organization of the whole economic life and by the preservation of order and the supply of the army. This weakening of authority could be felt everywhere, but it led to a catastrophe where the sufferings involved defeat. Such a hatred set in against those in power and against the leading circles and classes, and such contempt went with it, that the peaceable life of the state was injured to a serious degree. Demagogues, adventurers, ambitious people and neurasthenic subjects took advantage of the situation and heightened artificially the great excitement which existed already.

This devastating fever went through several stages before it prevented the continuation of the war and led to the October revolution. We suffered from the first from the fact that the war had been begun with a moral error. The battle-cries of modern times and of democracy went home easily against us, and they represented an enormous power, especially during the war, that is to say, during the time when the masses made such terrific efforts, and during the time which, in consequence, developed the self-consciousness of the people. We were particularly hard hit later on by Wilson's action. Demagogues and some naive souls asked whether it was not revolting treachery to continue the war if Wilson declared, in the name of the great American Republic, that the war is not conducted against nations, but against the autocratic system which caused the war and which the people did not wish to