Yet Wilson was hardly the only politician given to brazen chicanery. General Erich Ludendorff of Germany knew that there were several ways to win a war. The most obvious of course was on the battlefield. But getting the enemy to withdraw—or even lose his nerve—was also an effective mechanism. The crafty Ludendorff accordingly sought “to improve peace possibilities through the internal weakening of Russia,”[li] one of Germany’s foes at the time.
