cause we
wanted to be able one day to be reconciled with her." So, then, in
taking Alsace and a part of Lorraine, his idea was that no
reconciliation with the French would be possible. He intended that the
German people should believe itself in permanent danger of war, that
the new Empire should remain armed to the teeth, and that Germany,
instead of dissolving Prussian militarism into her own life, should
reinforce it by militarizing herself.

She reinforced it; and day by day the machine grew in complexity and
power. But in the process it yielded automatically a result very
different from that which its constructors had foreseen. It is the
story of the witch who, by a magic incantation, had won the consent of
her broomstick to go to the river and fill her buckets; having no
formula ready to check the work, she watched her cave fill with water
until she was drowned.

The Prussian army had been organized, brought to perfection, tended
with love by the Kings of Prussia, in order that it might serve their
lust of conquest. To take possession of neighbours' territory was then
the sole aim; territory was almost the whole of the national wealth.
But with the nineteenth century there was a new departure. The idea
peculiar to that century of diverting science to the satisfaction of
men's material wants evoked a development of industry, and
consequently of commerce, so extraordinary that the old conception of
wealth was completely overthrown. Not more than fifty years were
needed to bring about this transformation. On the morrow of the war of
1870 a nation expressly made for appropriating the good things of this
world had no alternative but to become industrial and commercial. Not
on that account, however, would she change the essential principle of
her action. On the contrary, she had but to utilize her habits of
discipline, method, tenacity, minute care, precise information--and,
we may add, of impertinence and spying--to which she owed the growth
of her military power. She would thus equip herself with industry and
commerce not less formidable than her army, and able to march, on
their part also, in military order.

From that time onwards these two were seen going forward together,
advancing at an even pace and reciprocally supporting each
other--industry, which had answered the appeal of the spirit of
conquest, on one side; on the other, the army, in which that spirit
was incarnate, with the navy, which had just been ad