propaganda among women, all were dismissed. Although victory was certain
in a few months there would be many thousands of wounded and she was
filled with a passionate desire to serve those heroes and martyrs of
foreign hatred. She forgot her personal experience of the German male,
forgot herself. Her beloved Fatherland was attacked, and the German male
in his heroic resistance, his triumphal progress, was become a god.
_Dienen! Dienen!_

She had no time to ponder upon the violation of Belgium and knew nothing
of the curious escape of medieval psychology from the formal harness of
modern times. She was engaged in hard menial labor during those first
weeks and it was sufficient to know that Germany had been violated. It
is true that her warrior parent had sometimes boasted of the day when
Germany should rule the world, and that he had referred to the Great
European War as a foregone conclusion, as so many had been doing these
past ten or fifteen years; but he had been careful to say nothing about
throwing the torch into the powder. Gisela, like the vast majority of
civilians in the Central Empires, had grown too accustomed to the
evidences of a great standing army to give them more than a passing
thought. Were they not, then, situate in the very middle of Europe?
Surrounded by envious and powerful enemies? What more natural than that
they should be ever on the alert?

That Germany herself would strike at the peace of Europe, a peace which
had brought her an unexampled prosperity and eminence, never had crossed
Gisela's mind. Nevertheless, knowing the German male as she did, she was
quite sure that the officers reveled in the exchange of peace for war as
much as the men in the ranks detested it. She could see Franz von
Nettelbeck barking out orders for the irresistible advance, his keen
blue eyes flashing with triumph, his Prussian upper lip curling with