ggressions. When these aggressions come, the whole
German folk stands with its army, as it does now.

The German Army is divided into 25 corps in times of peace. In war times
reservists, members of the Landwehr, and occasionally also of the
Landsturm, are called to the colors. The result is that the German Army
on a war footing is a tremendously powerful organ.

Our opponents in foreign countries have for years consistently
endeavored to awaken the belief that the German soldier does his
obligatory service very unwillingly, that he does not get enough to eat
and is badly treated. These assertions are false, and anybody who has
seen in these weeks of mobilization how our soldiers, reservists, and
Landwehr men departed for the field or reported at the garrisons,
anybody who has seen their happy, enthusiastic and fresh faces knows
that mishandled men, men who have been drilled as machines, cannot
present such an appearance.

On the day the German mobilization was ordered we traveled with some
Americans from the western border to Berlin. These Americans said: "We
do not know much about your army, but judging by what we have seen in
these days there prevails in it and all its arrangements such system
that it must win. System must win every time." In this saying there is,
indeed, much of truth--order and system are the basis upon which the
mighty organization of our army is built.

Now a word concerning the German officer. He, too, has been much
maligned, he is often misunderstood by foreigners, and yet we believe
that the people of the United States in particular must be able to
understand the German officer. One of the greatest sons of free America,
George Washington, gave his countrymen the advice to select only
gentlemen as officers, and it is according to this principle that the
officers of the German Army and Navy are chosen. Their selection is
made, moreover, upon a democratic basis, in that the officers' corps of
the various regiments decide for themselves whether they will or will
not accept as a comrade the person whose name is proposed to them.

One sees that the German Army is not, as many say, a tremendous machine,
but rather a great, living organism, which draws its strength and
lifeblood from all classes of the whole German folk. The German Army can
develop its entire strength only in a war which the folk approve, that
is, when a defensive war has been forced upon them. That this is true
will have been rea