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 army
reform in the face of the most stubborn and virulent opposition of a
parliamentary majority. Never, in the years following the formation of
the Empire, did his speech in the German Parliament rise to a higher
pathos than when he was asserting the military supremacy of the
Emperor, or calling upon the parties to forget their dissensions in
maintaining the defensive strength of the nation, or showering
contempt upon liberal deputies who seemed to think that questions of
national existence could be solved by effusions of academic oratory.