e German mobilization was the greatest movement of people that
the world has ever seen. Nearly four million people had to be
transported from every part of the empire to her borders. The manner
in which the population is distributed made the task extremely
difficult. Berlin, Rhenish Westphalia, Upper Silesia, and Saxony,
especially had to send their contingents in every direction, since
the eastern provinces are more thinly settled and had to have a
stronger guard for the borders immediately. The result was a
hurrying to and fro of thousands and hundreds of thousands of
soldiers, besides a flood of civilians who had to reach their homes
as soon as possible. Countries where the population is more
regularly distributed have an easier task than Germany, with its
predominating urban population.

"The difficulties of the gigantic undertaking were also increased by
the necessity for transporting war materials of every sort. In the
west are chiefly industrial undertakings, in the east mainly
agricultural. Horse raising is mostly confined to the provinces on
the North Sea and the Baltic, but chiefly to East Prussia, and this
province, the farthest away from France, had to send its best horses
to the western border, as did also Schleswig-Holstein and Hanover.
Coal for our warships had to go in the other direction. From the
Rhenish mines it went to the North Sea, from Upper Silesia to the
Baltic. Ammunition and heavy projectiles were transported from the
central part of the empire to its borders. And everywhere these
operations had to be carried on with haste....

"And how was it carried on? No one could have wondered if there had
been hundreds of unforeseen incidents, if military trains had
arrived at their stations with great delays, if there had resulted
in many places a wild hugger-mugger from the tremendous problems on
hand. But there was not a trace of this. ... All moved with the
regularity of clockwork. Regiments that had been ordered to
mobilize in the forenoon left in the evening for the field, fully
equipped....

[Illustration: Armies of the Contesting Nations.]

"A thing that raised the national enthusiasm still higher was the
appearance of the troops in brand-new uniforms, complete from head
to feet. The first sight of these new uniforms of modest, field
gray, faultlessly made, evoked everywhere the question: Where did
they come from? On the first day of mobilization dozens of cloth
manufacturers appeared at th