at had any power. By
1914, however, a change had come about. The wonderful development of
Germany's trade and manufacturing had brought wealth and power to the
merchant class and these had to be considered when plans for war were
being formed.

Naturally, the outbreak of war disturbs trade very much, especially
trade with foreign countries. A great deal of the German commerce,
carried on with Great Britain, the United States, South America, and
far distant colonies, had to travel over the ocean. German merchants
would never support a war cheerfully if they thought that their trade
would be interrupted for any length of time. So the Junkers, when they
made up their minds to wage war for the conquest of France and Russia,
persuaded the merchants that after these countries had been conquered
they would be forced to give a big sum of money to Germany which would
more than pay her back for the full cost of the war. Then the Russians
would be compelled, as a result of the war, to promise to trade only
with German merchants and manufacturers, and thus everybody in Germany
would be much richer.[6]

[6] When England came in, the merchants of Germany were very
down-hearted, for they saw all their over-seas trade cut off at a
blow. But the Junkers called together the leading merchants and bribed
them with promises. In the year 1918 one of the prominent
manufacturers of Germany made a statement which got out and was
published in the countries of the Entente. After telling how the blame
for the war was to be laid at the door of the land-owning, military
class, he confessed that he personally had been bribed to support the
war by the promise of thirty thousand acres of Australian land, which
was to be given to him after Germany had conquered the world. This, of
course, was pure piracy; the motto of Prussia for some time had been
that piracy pays.

There was one class of manufacturers who did not lose trade, but
gained it through a war. This was composed of the makers of guns and
munitions. They were clamorously back of the Junkers in their demands
for war. These people profited by preparation for war. They kept
inventing newer and stronger guns so that the weapons which they had
sold the governments one year would be out-of-date the next, ready to
be thrown on the scrap heap. In this way, the factories were kept
working over-time and their profits were enormous. This money, of
course, came out of the taxes of the common people.