rmans. The old
Field Marshal von Moltke said not long after the war of 1870-71 that the
Germans would still have to defend Alsace-Lorraine for fifty years more.
Perhaps he little realized how prophetic his words were, but he and
those who followed him, the German Emperors and the German War
Ministers, prepared themselves for this coming defensive struggle and
unremittingly devoted their attention to the German Army.

From 1887 on there had been no doubt that in the event of war with
France we should have to reckon also with Russia. This meant that the
army must be strong enough to be equal to the coming fight on two
borders--a tremendous demand upon the resources of a land when one
considers that a peaceful folk, devoted to agriculture, industry, and
trade, must live for decades in the constant expectation of being
obliged, be it tomorrow, be it in ten years, to fight for its life
against its two great military neighbors simultaneously. There are,
moreover, the great money expenditures, and also the burden of universal
military service, which, as is well known, requires every able-bodied
male German to serve a number of years with the colors, and later to
hold himself ready, first as a reservist, then as member of the
Landwehr, and finally as member of the Landsturm, to spring to arms at
the call of his supreme war lord, the German Emperor. A warlike,
militant nation would not long have endured such conditions, but would
have compelled a war and carried it through swiftly. As Bismarck said,
however, the German Army, since it is an army of the folk itself, is not
a weapon for frivolous aggression. Since the German Army, when it is
summoned to war, represents the whole German people, and since the whole
German people is peaceably disposed, it follows that the army can only
be a defensive organization. If war comes, millions of Germans must go
to the front, must leave their parents, their families, their children.
They must. And this "must" means not only the command of their Emperor,
but also the necessity to defend their own land. Did not this necessity
exist, these sons, husbands, and fathers would assuredly not go gladly
to the battlefield, and it is likewise certain that those who stayed at
home would not rejoice so enthusiastically to see them go as we Germans
have seen them rejoicing in these days. Again, then, let us repeat that
the German Army is a weapon which can be and is used only for defense
against foreign a