y less affected. Resumes of this great process as
reflected in the world's leading reviews appear below,
beginning with the British publications.

Germany's Long-Nourished Powers

That Germany has been preparing forty years for this war is flatly
contradicted by J. Ellis Barker in his article entitled "The Secret of
Germany's Strength," appearing in the Nineteenth Century and After for
July.

Not forty years, but for 260 years, since Frederick William, the Great
Elector, came to the Prussian throne, the slow-growing plants of
German efficiency and thoroughness have steadily unfolded, Mr. Barker
says, in the administrative, military, financial, and economic policy
that make modern Germany. It was the Great Elector who "ruthlessly and
tyrannously suppressed existing self-government in his possessions,
and gave to his scattered and parochially minded subjects a strong
sense of unity," thus clearing the way for his successors. Frederick
William I. founded in the Prussia prepared by his grandfather "a
perfectly organized modern State, a model administration, and created
a perfectly equipped and ever ready army." Of him Mr. Barker says:

The German people are often praised for their thoroughness,
industry, frugality, and thrift. These qualities are not
natural to them. They received them from their rulers, and
especially from Frederick William the First. He was an
example to his people, and his son carried on the paternal
tradition. Both Kings acted not only with thoroughness,
industry, frugality, and economy, but they enforced these
qualities upon their subjects. Both punished idlers of every
rank of society, even of the most exalted. The regime of
Thorough prevailed under these Kings who ruled during
seventy-three years. These seventy-three years of hard
training gave to the Prussian people those sterling
qualities which are particularly their own, and by which
they can easily be distinguished from the easy-going South
Germans and Austrians who have not similarly been
disciplined.

While the Great Elector prepared the ground, and King Frederick
William I. firmly laid the foundations, "Frederick the Great erected
thereon the edifice of modern Germany." Mr. Barker adds:

Among the many pupils of Frederick the Great was Bismarck.
It is no exaggeration to say that the writings which
Frederick the Great addressed t