other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but
nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes,
infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we
displayed in our little Spanish War.

Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business
as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the
discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year,
grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure
during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the
mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the
French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war
organization and have adapted themselves to it,--have learned the German
lesson,--they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of
national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions
imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as
the flower of human civilization.

* * * * *

Mere preparation, no matter how scientific and thorough, is by no
means the whole of the German lesson. The first months of the war
we heard too much about German preparedness, too little about German
character. By this time the world is realizing that military preparation
is but one manifestation of that German character, and the real danger
is German character itself. According to reports in her own newspapers
Germany found herself running short of war materials after the first
weeks of this extraordinarily prodigal war, which exceeded even her
prudent calculations. But Germany had the habit of preparation and the
social machinery ready to enlarge her war product. Without advertising