GERMANY WANTED TO GERMANIZE THE WORLD.--As a result of the reasoning outlined in the last paragraph, German writers taught that those things which were German--their speech, their literature, their religion, their armies, in short the manners, customs, and thoughts of the Germans--were the best possible manners, and customs, and thoughts. These things all taken together are what is meant by _Kultur_ (kool-toor´),--not merely "culture" as the latter word is generally used. Since the Germans believed that their _Kultur_ was the highest stage of human progress, the next step, according to the view of their leaders, would be to Germanize all the rest of the nations of the earth by imposing German _Kultur_ upon them. If possible, this was to be brought about with the consent of the other nations; if not, then it was to be imposed by force. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY.--1. Locate Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremen, East Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine. 2. Show on an outline map the regions which Germany desired to control. Who would have suffered? 3. If all countries adopted the German idea of war what would be the condition of the world? 4. Has any nation the right to impose its rule upon another people because it believes its own ideals are the only true ones? REFERENCES.--See page 26; also _Conquest and Kultur_ (C.P.I.); _War Cyclopedia_ (C.P.I.), under the headings "German Military Autocracy" and "Pan-Germanism." CHAPTER III GERMAN MILITARISM WHAT IS MILITARISM?--Militarism has been defined as "a policy which maintains huge standing armies for purposes of aggression." It should be noticed that the mere fact that a nation, through universal conscription, maintains a large standing army in times of peace does not convict it of militarism. Every one of the great European powers except England maintained such an army, and yet Germany was the only one that we can say had a militaristic government. A more narrow definition of militarism is that form of government in which the military power is in control, and with the slightest excuse can and does override the civil authority. This had been the situation in Germany for many years before the outbreak of the Great War. Let us take a glance at the development of this sort of government. After Napoleon conquered Prussia, early in the nineteenth century, one of the conditions of peace was that Prussia should reduce her army to not more than forty-two thousand men. In order that the country should not again be so easily conquered, the king of Prussia enrolled the permitted number of men for one year, then dismissed that group, and enrolled another of the same size, and so on. Thus, in the course of ten years, it would be possible for him to gather an army of four hundred thousand men who had had at least one year of military training.