ay that there is no
country in the world where the army is as enlightened or as popular an
institution as it is in Germany.

The German army is not composed of hirelings of professional fighters
whose business it is to pick quarrels, no matter with whom. It is, in
the strictest sense of the word, the people in arms. Among its
officers there is a large percentage of the intellectual elite of the
country; its rank and file embrace every occupation and every class of
society, from the scion of royal blood down to the son of the
seamstress. Although it is based upon the unconditional
acceptance of the monarchical creed, nothing is farther removed from
it than the spirit of servility. On the contrary, one of the very
first teachings which are inculcated upon the German recruit is that,
in wearing the "king's coat," he is performing a public duty, and that
by performing this duty he is honoring himself. Nor can it be said
that it is the aim of German military drill to reduce the soldier to a
mere machine, at will to be set in motion or be brought to a
standstill by his superior. The aim of this drill is rather to give
each soldier increased self-control, mentally no less than bodily; to
develop his self-respect; to enlarge his sense of responsibility, as
well as to teach him the absolute necessity of the subordination of
the individual to the needs of the whole. The German army, then, is by
no means a lifeless tool that might be used by an unscrupulous and
adventurous despot to gratify his own whims or to wreak his private
vengeance. The German army is, in principle at least, a national
school of manly virtues, of discipline, of comradeship, of
self-sacrifice, of promptness of action, of tenacity of purpose.
Although, probably, the most powerful armament which the world has
ever seen, it makes for peace rather than for war. Although called
upon to defend the standard of the most imperious dynasty of western
Europe, it contains more of the spirit of true democracy than many a
city government on this side of the Atlantic.

All this has to be borne in mind if we wish to judge correctly of
Bismarck's military propensities. He has never concealed the fact that
he felt himself, above all, a soldier. One of his earliest public
utterances was a defense of the Prussian army against the sympathizers
with the revolution of 1848. His first great political achievement was
the carrying through, in the early sixties, of King William's arm