The German National Assembly, which is to devise a new
Constitution, met at Weimar on Thursday week. Herr Ebert, the Chancellor, said that the old Hinge and Princes bad gone for ever. Germany had lost the war through the fault of the old Imperial Government. He protested violently against the intention of the Allies to obtain indemnities from Germany, against the " unheard-of severity " of the armistice, and against the assumption that Alsace was now French territory. He suggested that Germany, by professing herself Republican, should escape all the consequences of her crimes. " We warn the enemy not to try us beyond the limits of our endurance." His motto, he said, was "The worst privations rather than die- honour." He threatened that Germany might refuse to enter into Peace negotiations. Herr Ebert, who supported the ex- Emperor's war policy from the coded, is evidently of the same mind still. On Tuesday he was elected as the first President of the German Republic.
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