the ultimate decision turns. The duty of our War Department is to
prepare these decisive elements of strength while still at peace, and to
apply them in war according to a clearly recognized principle of
superiority. This must secure for us the spiritual and so the material
advantage over our enemies. Otherwise we run the danger of being crushed
by their weight of numbers.

We cannot reach this goal on the beaten roads of tradition and habit by
uninspired rivalry in arming. We must trace out with clear insight the
probable course of the future war, and must not be afraid to tread new
paths, if needs be, which are not consecrated by experience and use. New
goals can only be reached by new roads, and our military history teaches
us by numerous instances how the source of superiority lies in progress,
in conscious innovations based on convincing arguments. The spiritual
capacity to know where, under altered conditions, the decision must be
sought, and the spiritual courage to resolve on this new line of action,
are the soil in which great successes ripen.

It would be too long a task in this place to examine more closely the
nature of the future war, in order to develop systematically the ideas
which will prove decisive in it. These questions have been thoroughly
ventilated in a book recently published by me, "Vom heutigen Kriege"
("The War of To-day"). In this place I will only condense the results of
my inquiry, in order to form a foundation for the further consideration
of the essential questions of the future.

In a future European war "masses" will be employed to an extent
unprecedented in any previous one. Weapons will be used whose deadliness
will exceed all previous experience. More effective and varied means of
communication will be available than were known in earlier wars. These