the rioters; the air was filled with shouts and cries of Pfui!  (Shame!).  On the other side of the road the crowd sang the national hymn.  The masses clashed together, and the police advanced again and again till the street was cleared.  At the corner, however, the Socialists formed up again, and began to demonstrate anew, so that the police were compelled to attack them without any consideration in order to preserve the peace.  They cleared the pavements and galloped up the promenade.  Again the cry echoed ‘Down with war!’ and as answer came ’die Wacht am Rhein.’  But it was some considerable time before the struggle ceased to surge to and fro.” (Muenchen-Augsburger Abendzeitung, July 29th.)

Thus the great Socialist-International-Pacifist movement, with four and a quarter million German voters behind it, fizzled out on the pavements of Unter den Linden.  Probably there were demonstrations in other parts of Germany, but this much is certain, that the members of Catholic and Protestant Arbeiterverbaende (Workmen’s Societies) held meetings and demonstrated in favour of war.  On the other hand the Women’s Union of the German Peace Society in Stuttgart sent a telegram to the Kaiser, begging him in the name of “millions of German mothers” to preserve the peace.

The most interesting protest against the war movement is undoubtedly the following:  “This, then, is the cultural height to which we have attained.  Hundreds of thousands of the healthiest, finest, most valuable forces in the nation are trembling from anxiety that chance, or a nod of Europe’s rulers, malevolence, or a fit of Sadism, a Caesar-madness or a business speculation, an empty word or a vague conception of honour, will drive them to-morrow out of their homes, from wife and child, from all that which they treasure and have built up with so much pain and trouble—­into death.  The mad coincidence may arise to-day, may call them to-morrow, or at any minute, and all, all of them will go—­obeying damnable necessity, but still obeying.  At first they will whine on seeing their bit of earthly happiness snatched away, but soon, however—­although their consciences may not be quite clean—­they will be possessed by the general frenzy to murder and be murdered.”  Franz Pfemfert in die Aktion.

Although this article appeared on August 1st, it had evidently been written before the proclamation of martial law.  It was one of the last political articles which the paper published, for the next number but one contains the announcement that “the Aktion will in future only publish articles on art and literature.”  The reasons are not far to seek.