I have very different moods about it--no convictions.

It seems to me to depend, as things now are, more on the submarines than on anything else.

If we could effectually discourage them so that the Germans would have to withdraw them and could no more keep up the spirit of their people by stories of the imminent starvation of England, I have a feeling that the hunger and the war weariness of the German people would lead them to force an end.

But, the more they are called on to suffer the more patriotic do they think themselves and they _may_ go on till they drop dead in their tracks.
What I am really afraid of is that the Germans may, before winter, offer all that the Western Allies most want--the restoration of Belgium and France, the return of Alsace-Lorraine, etc., in the West and the surrender of the Colonies--provided Austria is not dismembered.

That would virtually leave them the chance to work out their Middle Europe scheme and ultimately there'd probably have to be another war over that question.