e War Ministry with offers of new
material. 'We don't want any' was the astonishing reply. Equal
amazement was caused by the faultless boots and shoes of the new
troops, especially in view of the recent famous 'boot speech' of the
French Senator Humbert.

"Small arms, cannon, and ammunition are so plentiful, that they have
merely to be unpacked. In view of all this, it is no wonder that the
regiments marching in were everywhere greeted with jubilation, and
that those marching out took leave of their garrisons with joyful
songs. No one thinks of death and destruction, every one of happy
victory and joyful reunion. German discipline, once so slandered,
now celebrates its triumph.

"There was still another matter in which the troops gave their
countrymen cause for rejoicing. Not one drunken man was seen during
these earnest days on the city streets. The General Staff had,
moreover, wisely ordered that during the mobilization, when every
one had money in his pockets, alcoholic drinks were not to be sold
at the railroad stations....

"The army is increased to many times its ordinary strength by the
mobilization. It draws from everywhere millions of soldiers,
workmen, horses, wagons, and other materials. The entire railway
service is at its disposal.... Not only is our great army mobilized,
but the whole folk is mobilized, and the distribution of labor, the
food question, and the care of the sick and wounded are all being
provided for. The whole German folk has become a gigantic war camp,
all are mobilized to protect kaiser, folk, and fatherland, as the
closing report of the Reichstag put it."

From this German statement of German mobilization by a German
committee of men of the utmost standing in the empire certain
things stand out very clearly. Of this the first one is that, with a
peace strength of less than a million, on the very first flush of
mobilization, every possible contingency for the mobilization of
four million men was at hand. German mobilization, therefore, was
not the devising of plans to carry out a project, but it was rather
the putting into action of a vast interacting series of preparation
that had long been made and carefully conceived for an attack upon
the powers to the westward. From every point of view, looking at the
mobilization at the opening of the war, Germany's was the most rapid
and the most complete, and, as the "Truth about Germany" states, it
was perhaps the most marvelous piece of mi