because it believes its own ideals are the only true ones?

REFERENCES.--See page 26; also _Conquest and Kultur_
(C.P.I.); _War Cyclopedia_ (C.P.I.), under the headings
"German Military Autocracy" and "Pan-Germanism."




CHAPTER III

GERMAN MILITARISM


WHAT IS MILITARISM?--Militarism has been defined as "a policy which
maintains huge standing armies for purposes of aggression." It should be
noticed that the mere fact that a nation, through universal
conscription, maintains a large standing army in times of peace does not
convict it of militarism. Every one of the great European powers except
England maintained such an army, and yet Germany was the only one that
we can say had a militaristic government.

A more narrow definition of militarism is that form of government in
which the military power is in control, and with the slightest excuse
can and does override the civil authority. This had been the situation
in Germany for many years before the outbreak of the Great War.

Let us take a glance at the development of this sort of government.
After Napoleon conquered Prussia, early in the nineteenth century, one
of the conditions of peace was that Prussia should reduce her army to