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SECRETS OF CREWE HOUSE
doing when, after the close of the war, he gave Lord Northcliffe the thanks of England for the propaganda he had carried out. Lord Northcliffe was a master of mass-suggestion. The enemy′s propaganda attacked us by transmitting reports and print from the neutral States on our frontier, especially Holland and Switzerland. It assailed us in the same way from Austria, and finally in our own country by using the air. It did this with such method and on such a scale that many people were no longer able to distinguish their own impressions from what the enemy propaganda had told them. This propaganda was all the more effective in our case as we had to rely, not on the numbers, but on the quality of our battalions in prosecuting the war. The importance of numbers in war is incontestable. Without soldiers there can be no war. But numbers count only according to the spirit which animates them. As it is in the life of peoples, so it is also on the battlefield. We had fought against the world, and could continue to do so with good conscience so long as we were spiritually ready to endure the burden
