eat strength
which God has placed in the German nation fully available. If we do
not need all the troops, it is not necessary to summon them. We are
trying to avoid the contingency when we shall need them.

This attempt is as yet made rather difficult for us by the threatening
newspaper articles in the foreign press, and I should like to admonish
these foreign editors to discontinue such threats. They do not lead
anywhere. The threats which we see made--not by the governments, but
by the press--are really incredibly stupid, when we stop to reflect
that the people making them imagine they could frighten the proud and
powerful German empire by certain intimidating figures made by
printer's ink and shallow words. People should not do this. It would
then be easier for us to be more obliging to our two neighbors. Every
country after all is sooner or later responsible for the windows which
its press has smashed. The bill will be rendered some day, and will
consist of the ill-feeling of the other country. We are easily
influenced--perhaps too easily--by love and kindness, but quite surely
never by threats! We Germans fear God, and naught else in the world!
It is this fear of God which makes us love and cherish peace. If in
spite of this anybody breaks the peace, he will discover that the
ardent patriotism of 1813, which called to the standards the entire
population of Prussia--weak, small, and drained to the marrow as it
then was--has today become the common property of the whole German
nation. Attack the German nation anywhere, and you will find it armed
to a man, and every man with the firm belief in his heart: God will be
with us.

MOUNT THE GUARDS AT THE WARTHE AND THE VISTULA!

September 16, 1894

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[On September 16, 1894, when Bismarck was no longer chancellor, 2,200
Germans from the province of Posen appeared in Varzin to thank him for
his devoted work in the service of the national idea, and to gather
courage from him in their fight against the Polish propaganda which
had gained strength under the new regime at court. The aged
farm-manager, Mr. Kennemann, was the leader and spokesman of the
visitors.]

Gentleman! First I must ask your indulgence, since for two days I have
been upset by an unpolitical enemy called lumbago, an old acquaintance
of mine for sixty years. I hope to get the better of him soon, and
then to be able to stand again fully erect. At present, I must
c