not more than forty-two thousand men. In order that the country should
not again be so easily conquered, the king of Prussia enrolled the
permitted number of men for one year, then dismissed that group, and
enrolled another of the same size, and so on. Thus, in the course of ten
years, it would be possible for him to gather an army of four hundred
thousand men who had had at least one year of military training.

The officers of the army were drawn almost entirely from among the
land-owning nobility. The result was that there was gradually built up a
large class of military officers on the one hand, and, on the other, a
much larger class, the rank and file of the army. These men had become
used, in the army, to obeying implicitly all the commands of the
officers.

This led to several results. Since the officer class furnished also most
of the officials for the civil administration of the country, the
interests of the army came to be considered the same as the interests of
the country as a whole. A second result was that the governing class
desired to continue a system which gave them so much power over the
common people. We should perhaps consider as a third result the fact
that the possession of such a splendid and efficient military machine
tended to make its possessors arrogant and unyielding in their
intercourse with other nations.

COMPETITION IN ARMAMENTS.--After 1870 the German emperor was the
commander of the whole German army, which was organized and trained on
the Prussian model. The fact that Germany had such an efficient army
caused other nations to be in constant fear of attack. Therefore her
neighbors on the continent of Europe were led to organize similar armies
and make other preparations for defense.