John had seen them turned back in those long days of fighting on the Marne, and more than a million had been killed or wounded since the war began, but that avalanche of men and guns still poured out of the heart of Germany.

He felt more deeply than ever that the world could not afford a German victory, and the sanguinary spectacle of a Kaiser riding roughshod over civilization.

The fact that so many German people were likable and that Germany had achieved so much made the case all the worse.
He took the road the next morning, not on foot this time but in an empty provision wagon, returning eastward, drawn by two powerful horses and driven by Fritz, a stout German youth.

Both Hans and the hausfrau wished him well, and he soon made a friend of Fritz, who was a Bavarian from a little village near Munich.

John knew Munich better than any other German city, and he and the young German soon established a common ground of conversation, because to Fritz Munich was the greatest and finest of all cities.
That was one of the pleasantest mornings he experienced on his long and solitary quest.