It may be asked, What is the use of all this? Will not the general exhaustion of Europe after the world conflagration of a certainty put the danger of a new war, to begin with, in the background, and does not this terrible slaughter of nations point inevitably to the necessity of disarmament to pave the way to permanent peace? The reply to that is that nobody can undertake to guarantee a long period of peace, and that a lasting peace is guaranteed only by strong armaments. Our own armament, although it may have been defective in some respects, has none the less secured peace for us for forty years, that is to say, for such a length of time as has hardly ever before been experienced in the world's history, in the case of a great country. Moreover, world-power is inconceivable without striving for expression of power in the world and consequently for sea-power. But this involves the constant existence of a large number of potential causes of friction. Hence arises the necessity for adequate armaments on land and sea. A sound policy of power is by no means equivalent to a one-sided glorification of war. It is true that the effects of war are in many respects very beneficial. War banishes pretence and reveals the truth. It produces the most sublime manifestations of masculine personality, and the greatest devotion and self-sacrifice for the sake of the community. If ever an age has corroborated the words of Treitschke that "the features of history are virile,"[1] it is the present, and we, Germans have been described by a Swede as "the most powerful military nation in the world's history."[2] But this does not in any way alter the fact that the effects of war are terrible; nay, that, judged by these, war seems to civilised men absolutely senseless, in view of the sacrifice and destruction which it entails, and of the misery which it brings in its train. And, none the less, however convinced we may be that war is a sin against humanity, that it is something worthy of detestation, this conviction brings us no nearer to eternal peace. War has its basis in human nature, and as long as human nature remains unaltered, war will continue to exist, as it has existed already for thousands of years. The often quoted saying of Moltke that wars are inhuman, but eternal peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream, will continue to be true. The World War has also fully confirmed the justice of the following words of Heinrich von Treitschke: "The polished man of the world and the savage have both the brute in them. Nothing is truer than the biblical doctrine of original sin, which is not to be uprooted by civilisation, to whatever point you may bring it."[3] A long peace, such as that which preceded the World War, had frequently caused us to overlook the fact that it was not the fine phrases about international bliss and brotherhood uttered on every occasion at public meetings which preserved us from war, but the might of our