And coming to particulars, the public men of the Military Powers derided the army and the navy. They revelled in accounts of the long sequence of mishaps that befell French warships a couple of years ago. They savoured the stories of the powder that was not only smokeless, but fireless, when it was needed for the guns, and which exploded quickly enough to hurl ships and crews into destruction. Yet the most patriotic statesman of the Republic, M. Delcassé, was then presiding over the destinies of the Republic’s sea forces. And as for the army, who, it was asked, has forgotten the exodus of its best generals and officers on account of the treatment to which their views on religion subjected them? Here in Germany we have Catholic generals and officers fighting side by side with Protestants and Atheists, because one and all we are and feel ourselves Germans. It is possible that our Government or our Kaiser may impose a Professor on a University because he is an Orthodox Lutheran or a good Catholic, as was the case when the Kaiser sent Professor Spahn to a University chair in order to conciliate the Centre. But is it conceivable that any man, however influential or favoured, should receive a command in the German army or navy on other grounds than his strictly technical qualifications? Of course not. If we possessed a really good strategist, he would make his way to the top even if he were an incarnate demon. We have no political appointments in either of our services. There the maxim is supreme that the career is open to talents. For over forty years we have concentrated all our energies, diplomatic, financial, scientific, technical, upon the creation of two formidable weapons of defence and aggression, and have subordinated every other consideration to that end. What other people in Europe has done this, nay, attempted it? And we now possess that weapon. There is not the slightest doubt that if the Republic were foolish enough to venture all it has and is on the issue of a war with Germany, it would not stop at this blunder. It would go further, and select for its army leaders men who are good radicals or republicans, and who never go to mass, rather than able military men who can handle millions of soldiers and make their mark in strategy.