If a person looks upon the war situation in Europe through the eyes of a German sergeant, or, better still, if his skin is ready for a taxidermist like the skin Marshal Hindenburg boasts of with pride [sic], last year's was balance may look most satisfactory to him. Pottsdam's hegemony over Central Europe is as complete as it ever can be. Germany's strongest ally, Austria-Hungary, is fully under German domination. Vienna's foreign policies are dictated from Berlin; German generals rule the Austrian armies. Salonika, which has always been the ultimate aim of Austrian politics in the Balkans, is threatened by Marshal Mackensen's army, while the Austrian army has been given the difficult and profitless duty of subduing Montenegro. Customs union between Austria-Hungary and Germany is an accomplished fact, and the Hungarian diet is expressing a great deal of satisfaction over the controversy between Austria and the United States, a controversy which is by no means in accordance with Austrian wishes, the only reason for the Hungarian pleasure being the fact, as expressed by Hungarian leading 2statesmen, that the controversy tends to stress "Austria-Hungary's independence from Germany". It is just this desire to point out symptoms of such independence in absolutely unrelated [sic] matters that shows the anxiety of the ruling circles of the Dual Monarchy over the growing German influence in the internal affairs of the Danubian Empire.

The absolute supremacy of Germany in the affairs of Turkey has been sufficiently discussed in the daily reports to make any additional proofs of it unnecessary. German "advisers" have been appointed to all Ministries in Turkey, which means that that country is losing the last prerogatives of independence which it had enjoyed, at least in the political sense. In military matters it lost all independence a long time ago; its army is just as completely controlled by German officers as the Austrian army. There is no doubt that these "advisers" are actually dictators also in all matters pertaining to Turkey's internal affairs. Of the "allies" of Germany, Bulgaria has succeeded in preserving perhaps the greatest degree of independence, although news about bloody encounters between German and Bulgarian officers 3prove that here also the Prussians have made an attempt to impose their will upon a helper of nominally equal rank.

And thus, leading a gang of obedient slaves, the Kaiser continues his triumphal march to his "place in the sun". The Russian army has been pushed far back into its own territory without any apparent indication of its ability to start a large-scale offensive in the near future; the Russian territory occupied by Germany is larger than a half of Germany itself, and it is just in that occupied territory that the industrial life of Russia was pulsating. The events in the Balkans are too recent a memory to make any enlarging upon them necessary. Serbia is crushed and under the heel of its Teutonic and Bulgarian invaders, and only a handful of Montenegrin heroes have been able to still keep up the fight. England is recalling her army from the Gallipoli Peninsula, thus admitting the uselessness of fighting upon that particular battlefield after having lost one hundred thousand men there. In Mesopotamia, the British expeditionary forces have been thrown back from the very gates of Bagdad, losing in that way a great deal of prestige in the eyes of the Mohammedan world; 4at this time, the British are putting forth their strongest efforts to hold their positions at Kut-el-Amara, halfway to the Persian Gulf. That they could repeat their attack in the direction of Bagdad, the old goal of the Pan-Germanic "Drang Nach Osten" (pressure toward the East), seems to be out of the question.

Neither do the other fronts show a more cheerful aspect for the Allies. For seven months, the Italians have been beating their foreheads against the fortifications of Gorizia, their principal obstacle on the way to the ultimate aim of their campaign, the port of Trieste; their advanced observers do not yet even see Trentino, the other main prize to which they aspire. The loss of almost half a million men has not brought them as yet even one half of the territory that had been offered to them freely by Austria. The chief commander of the British army on the Western Front has been discharged because of grave errors he committed, which caused the failure of the May offensive at Neuve Chapelle and the fall offensive at Loos. The French offensive in the Champagne gained a few kilometers, barely noticeable on the map, which were 5paid for with such heavy losses that its balance is rather in favor of the enemies of the Republic. Hence, as we have said, an observer looking at the war situation through the spectacles of a German sergeant cannot but believe that, according to all rules of former wars, the Allies should have been on their knees a long time ago, gratefully accepting any conditions no matter how cruel they might be, dictated by the bosses in Berlin.

The fact, however, is that the desire and asking for peace is much stronger in Germany than in the Allied countries. The victories of the German armies are gradually assuming the character of Pyrrhic victories. Another series of such victories as the German armies have won so far, and the Vaterland will be an economic ruin. As recently as in August of this year, the German minister of finance, Dr. Karl Helfferich, made the statement that the cost of the war will be paid for from the enormous indemnity that will be exacted from the Allies, and particularly from France. However, in the present session of the Reichstag (German parliament) Helfferich had to admit that the income tax would have to be raised, in some cases as much as 150 per cent, in order to 6prevent the country from going into bankruptcy. The Berliner Tageblatt, one of the pillars of the Kaiser's government, complains bitterly that Helfferich's former speeches indicated that no new taxes would be imposed before the end of the war, and then only in case such taxes were necessary, and now the Minister announces that new taxes will be levied at the beginning of the coming year. Dr. Helfferich, in order to get out of the blind alley, blames, as usual, the socialistic propaganda for the discontent of the public. But that is an excuse which will find little credence even among the Germans themselves. In this war, the Kaiser has had no more valuable Helpers than the leaders of the German socialists.

The superior economic power of the Allies, their absolute control of the seas, the stymie of all German industrial life which, in the capitalistic system, must necessarily depend upon exports, the loss of colonies, the firm determination of all Allied countries to keep on fighting until the Prussian militarism is destroyed--all that must exercise a most depressing influence on the whole public life of Germany. Yesterday's reported attack of the hungry 7population on the palace of Archduke Stephen in Vienna, where the blue-blooded gang that had dragged the people into this war and into all this bottomless misery was indulging in unrestrained merrymaking, feasting, and drunken orgies almost directly in the view of their starving victims--this attack, the stormy demonstrations of suffering women in Germany's market places, all indicates that the population of the Central Powers has instinctively come to realize who the true culprits are, where the true root of all the evil is. A guillotine, erected in front of the imperial castle in Vienna, and another in front of the Kaiser's palace in Berlin would be a much more certain indication of victory of the nations of central Europe than the idiotic wooden statue of Hindenburg.