ABSTRACT
In the euphoria of victory British leaders believed that a new Germany had emerged from the war. When the Daily News proclaimed, ‘The old Germany is gone for ever’, it expressed the sentiments of most government leaders as well. To most British leaders, Germany in early November seemed indeed to have been ‘freed from military domination’, and this perception profoundly affected their attitude towards the new German government and towards Germany’s place in the European system. Lord Milner and Julian Amery, it is true, had early rejected the idea of the war as a crusade against Prussian militarism, and Milner had long advocated a moderate peace. Yet, in the aftermath of the German Revolution, others who had wholeheartedly subscribed to the view of the war as a struggle against Prussian militarism and had strongly argued the necessity of complete military victory shared this perception of the situation in Germany.
