Things never quite repeat themselves in history. But we may learn from history. Not in order to be more prudent another time, but in order to be wise for all time, as Jacob Burckhardt says. In this sense, the American Civil War might have furnished us many a hint which was left disregarded. But we must confess, as Professor Bernhard Harms said in a lecture, that in August, 1914, we found ourselves confronted with the problem of conducting a war governed by world-economic considerations without immediately comprehending it. To be sure, our opponents too only gradually perceived the true situation. The operations which they had begun extracted only little by little the full advantage of the world-economic situation, which was favourable to them and unfavourable to us; they did so only when they met with an unexpected force of resistance in the Central Powers. But in any case, in our military conduct of the War, we drew the necessary conclusions from the world-situation, and were at pains to turn it to account by means of a far-reaching organisation. In every domain only the War itself could be the great teacher in regard to these hitherto unknown effects of world-economics upon its range. It was generally taken for granted that a long war was in these days hardly practicable. For England it was "a commercial war with a view to her own enrichment and the annihilation of her chief rival."[5] Nevertheless, even England did not at the outset reckon for a war of such long duration. Only when it became apparent that the forcible annihilation of her "chief rival" by the aid of her Allies was not to be accomplished did England find herself compelled to make considerable additions to her fighting forces, and finally to adopt the system of universal service. Lord Kitchener was prompt in grasping the situation, and, by erecting a strong army, put the country in a position to sustain a long war. Even Field-Marshal Count Schlieffen, for all his farsightedness, though he insisted that the frontal attack would produce no decisive result, but that the campaign would drag itself out, declared in the article already referred to: "Such wars are, however, impossible at a time when the existence of the nation is based upon the unbroken continuance of trade and industry, and the machinery which has been brought to a standstill must be set in motion again by a speedy decision. A strategy of exhaustion becomes impossible, when the maintenance of it demands milliards from millions."