t mean that we should adopt precipitately measures calculated
merely for the exigencies of the moment. All that we undertake in the
cause of military efficiency must meet two requirements: it must answer
the pressing questions of the present, and aid the development of the
future. But we must find the danger of our position a stimulus to
desperate exertions, so that we may regain at the eleventh hour
something of what we have lost in the last years.

Since the crucial point is to safeguard our much-threatened position on
the continent of Europe, we must first of all face the serious problem
of the land war--by what means we can hope to overcome the great
numerical superiority of our enemies. Such superiority will certainly
exist if Italy ceases to be an active member of the Triple Alliance,
whether nominally belonging to it, or politically going over to
Irredentism. The preparations for the naval war are of secondary
importance.

The first essential requirement, in case of a war by land, is to make
the total fighting strength of the nation available for war, to educate
the entire youth of the country in the use of arms, and to make
universal service an existing fact.

The system of universal service, born in the hour of need, has by a
splendid development of strength liberated us from a foreign yoke, has
in long years of peace educated a powerful and well-armed people, and
has brought us victory upon victory in the German wars of unification.
Its importance for the social evolution of the nation has been discussed
in a separate chapter. The German Empire would to-day have a mighty
political importance if we had been loyal to the principle on which our
greatness was founded.

France has at the present day a population of some 40,000,000; Russia in
Europe, with Poland and the Caucasus, has a population of 140,000,000.
Contrasted with this, Germany has only 65,000,000 inhabitants. But since
the Russian military forces are, to a great extent, hampered by very
various causes and cannot be employed at any one time or place, and are
also deficient in military value, a German army which corresponded to
the population would be certainly in a position to defend itself
successfully against its two enemies, if it operated resolutely on the
inner line, even though England took part in the war.

Disastrously for ourselves, we have become disloyal to the idea of
universal military service, and have apparently definitely discontin