citizens' army of France during the Revolution--was necessary; so
that every young man in Germany physically competent to bear arms might
receive the training of a soldier, whether he wished it or not, and
remain at the call of the Government for military duty during all his
years of competency, even if he were the only son of a widow, or a
widower with little children, or the sole support of a family or other
dependents. In order to the completeness of this military ideal the army
became the nation and the nation became the army to a degree which had
never before been realized in either the savage or the civilized world.
This army could be summoned and put in play by the Chief Executive of
the German Nation with no preliminaries except the consent of the
hereditary heads of the several States which united to form the empire
in 1870-71 under the domination of Prussia, the Prussian King, become
German Emperor, being Commander in Chief of the German Army. At the word
of the Emperor this army can be summoned, collected, clothed, equipped
and armed, and set in motion toward any frontier in a day. The German
Army was thus made the largest in proportion to population, the best
equipped, and the most mobile in the world. The German General Staff
studied incessantly and thoroughly plans for campaigns against all the
other principal States of Europe, and promptly utilized--secretly,
whenever secrecy was possible--all promising inventions in explosives,
ordnance, munitions, transportation, and sanitation. At the opening of
1914 the General Staff believed that the German Army was ready for war
on the instant, and that it possessed some significant advantages in
fighting--such as better implements and better discipline--over the
armies of the neighboring nations. The army could do its part toward the
attainment of world empire. It would prove invincible.

A Great German Navy.

The intense desire for colonies, and for the spread of German commerce
throughout the world, instigated the creation of a great German navy,
and started the race with England in navy building. The increase of
German wealth, and the rapid development of manufactures and commercial
sea power after 1870-71, made it possible for the empire to devote
immense sums of money to the quick construction of a powerful navy, in
which the experience and skill of all other shipbuilding nations would
be appropriated and improved on. In thus pushing her colonization and
se