triarians, of the best human material which we have among our people,
men over thirty years of age and fathers of families, then we must
have for them also the best arms that can be secured. We should not
send them into battle with arms which we do not deem good enough for
our regular troops. These staunch men, fathers of families, and
gigantic figures, as we remember them from the time when they held the
bridge of Versailles, should carry on their shoulders the best of
guns, and have the most complete armor and necessary clothing to ward
off the hardships of the weather and other ills. In such matters we
must not be saving.

After listening to the survey of forty years which I have just given
it is natural that our fellow-citizens should realize the ever-present
danger of a coalition against us and the possibility of a double
attack, in which I, to be sure, do not believe. The thought,
however, that in such a case we can have one million good soldiers for
our defense on either frontier will be most reassuring to them. In
addition, we can keep at home reserves of half a million and more, or
even a million, sending them to the front as they may be needed. I
have been told: "The result will be that the others will also increase
their strength." This they cannot do, for they long ago reached their
highest figure. We decreased our figures in 1867, because we believed
that we could take things easy, with the North German Alliance at our
disposal, and could release from service all men over thirty-two years
of age. Our neighbors subsequently adopted a longer period of service,
many one as long as twenty years. The minister of war will be able to
explain this to you more in detail, if he will address you. In figures
the others are as strong as we, but in quality they cannot equal us.
Courage is the same with all civilized nations, the Russian or the
Frenchman fights as bravely as the German; but our people, our 700,000
men, are experienced, _rompus au metier,_ trained soldiers who have
not forgotten anything.

In addition, no nation in the world can equal us in our material of
officers and subalterns to direct such a huge army. This means the
remarkable degree to which popular education has spread in Germany,
and which appears in no other country. The degree of education which
is needed to qualify an officer and a subaltern to command according
to what the soldiers expect of them, is found with us far more
extensively than e