d by the Allies that famine might reinforce the work of
their armies and navies in compelling the enemy to sue for peace.
About 9 per cent. of the corn used in Germany usually came from
abroad, and now the interruption of the communications rendered this
source of supply precarious. The soldiers, too, had to be fed on a
scale of greater abundance than usual, and the prisoners of war,
however poorly nourished, would consume a certain amount of corn. The
first measure promulgated to meet the new conditions was a prohibition
of exportation. Potato flour was employed in bread-baking. War bread
was standardized for the whole Empire. The principal cities purchased
vast quantities of cereals, and Prussia founded a War Corn Association
for the acquisition of cereals to be stored until the ensuing spring.
Expropriation was legalized. In these ways L40,000,000 worth of
cereals were got together for consumption. The War Corn Association
operated with a capital of L2,500,000, to which the States subscribed
over one million, and the big cities one million, and the great
industrial firms L450,000.[114] This corn was paid for at the highest
market rates, the owners being compelled by law to declare how much
they possessed. With each of these proprietors--in the first phase
with 5,000,000 landowners--separate arrangements were concluded. The
Association employed for the purpose nearly three thousand
commissioners and five hundred other officials, and the Credit Banks
made advances on the quantities sold.

[114] Cf. Karl Hildebrand, _Ein starkes Volk_, p. 122.

Simultaneously with this home organization the other multifarious
tasks of devising new weapons for the war, improving the various types
of aircraft, building larger submarines and guns of greater calibre
went forward with unimpaired speed. Nothing was too vast or too
complicated to be undertaken, no detail was too trivial to be studied.
Politics, economics, military strategy and national psychology were
all cunningly interwoven in the various schemes laid for the
destruction of the Allies. Russia was inveigled into continuing her
trade with Germany, which, as we saw, was during the first year a
nowise negligible quantity.

A piquant detail in this connection is worthy of mention.[115] It is
affirmed that the Customs House authorities on the Russo-Swedish
frontiers discovered to their dismay that for well over a year Germany
had been receiving from Russia a large proportio