We are a democratic society; we become less and less military. The Prussian, Russian, Austrian aristocracies which alone make the military spirit of those states, feel in our democratic society an example which threatens their existence, as nobility, as aristocracy. They are our enemies and will be until they are wiped, out, until the Russian, Austrian and Prussian states become democratic societies, like ours. It is a matter of time. The Prussian aristocracy is young. It has not been degenerated by wealth, luxury and servility of the court. The Prussian court is not a court in the luxurious sense of the word. There is the danger. Meanwhile Machiavellian doctrines not being forbidden to aristocracies, these people appeal to German Jingoism, to German patriotism, to all the passions which move one people who are jealous of another. All this is meant to hide under a patriotic exterior their concern for their own existence as an aristocracy, as a nobility. The real menace of the day is czarism, stronger than the czars themselves, which calls for a crusade to drive back Russia and the uncultured Slav race. It is time that we understood the lack of power in mob armies; that we recall to mind the first armies of the revolution that were saved from instant destruction only by the lack of vigor and decision in European cabinets and armies. Look at the examples of revolutionaries of all times, who have all to gain and cannot hope for mercy. Since Spartacus, have they not always been defeated? An army is not really strong unless it is developed from a social institution. Spartacus and his men were certainly terrible individual fighters. They were gladiators used to struggle and death. They were prisoners, barbarian slaves enraged by their loss of liberty, or escaped serfs, all men who could not hope for mercy. What more terrible fighters could be imagined? But discipline, leadership, all was improvised and could not have the firm discipline coming down from the centuries and drawn from the social institutions of the Romans. They were conquered. Time, a long time, is needed to give to leaders the habit of command and confidence in their authority--to the soldiers confidence in their leaders and in their fellows. It is not enough to order discipline. The officers must have the will to enforce it, and its vigorous enforcement must instill subordination in the soldiers. It must make them fear it more than they fear the enemy's blows. How did Montluc fight, in an aristocratic society? Montluc shows us, tells us. He advanced in the van of the assault, but in bad places he pushed in front of him a soldier whose skin was not worth as much as was his. He had not the slightest doubt or shame about doing this. The soldier did not protest, the propriety of the act was so well established. But you, officers, try that in a democratic army, such as we have commenced to have, such as we shall later have!