The war seemed to have destroyed all false hopes. From the very beginning, Jews felt joined with other Germans in the war efforts and uplifted by the promise of total brotherhood, as announced by Kaiser Wilhelm II in the streets of Berlin. But later on, as the war became a rather hopeless trench war, little remained of this sense of togetherness. The Jews felt the atmospheric change in the return of antisemitism. Individuals experienced it directly in their various army units and the community as a whole was finally shocked and irritated by the decision to collect “Jewish Statistics,” measuring their presumably real part in defending the Fatherland, , in October 1916. Later on, Jews were overwhelmed, together with others, by more threatening dangers. After briefly telling the life-story of Albert Ballin, the great ship-owner from Hamburg, a “Kaiser-Jew,” and the way he experienced the lost war, the end of the empire, and the approaching revolution, the chapter moves on to tell of the great hopes entertained by other, less prosperous Jews, who experienced the end of the old order and the imminent establishment of a new republic in a far more positive light.

Implementing treaties and policy papers, particularly when they are the result of a precarious compromise between multiple international players, is notoriously troublesome in the functioning of coalitions. A coalition grand strategy is shaped by usually conflicting national war aims, which are the products of distinct domestic considerations and strategic views. That is why general agreements are often followed by implementation documents providing an operational framework. These, however, are rarely flexible enough to survive contact with the enemy, as well as unpredictable situational changes. The implementation of the London Treaty is a clear example.