It would be a gross overstatement to say that the followers of the liberal vocations were for the most part in favour of a new European conflict. Many of them were by nature men of peace; many, again, were far too much immersed in professional duties and research work to trouble their heads about politics. Yet all the highly-educated element in Germany, all those whose minds had been trained by intensive methods, issued from the same mould, that of the public schools and universities, where the fire of a white-hot patriotism was kept alive. Almost all of the younger generation, from one end of the Empire to another, had been faced, while still at their lessons, with the dilemma which Bernhardi summed up for his readers in the words: “_Weltmacht oder Niedergang!_” (“World Power or Downfall!”) Among university students and even the pupils of the _Gymnasien_ (highest-grade schools), knotty problems were hotly discussed. Had the era of great wars vanished for ever? Had not Germany, girt, like the Siegfried of her legends, with an invincible sword, come too late into the lists, at a time when the struggle to carve the world had reached its end? Was Germany therefore to rest content, in cowardly fashion, with her humble lot, or should she throw down the gauntlet to those who held these rich spoils in fee? As time went on, these questions grew more and more pressing, while no change took place in the relative position of the great Powers. German literature, drawing inspiration from Tolstoi, the Scandinavian masters, and the French writers, was extremely fond of painting social distress. Although much given to criticism, often severe, of the privileged classes, it never, so far as I know, inveighed against war and the abuse of might. Vivid sketches of officers, scathing satires on their vices and on the brutalities of Prussian discipline—of these there was enough and to spare. They were often very well written; some have been translated into French and produced with success on the Parisian stage. No eminent playwright or novelist of the day in Germany, however, spoke out boldly on behalf of peace and disarmament. Their pens pricked individual types, and often drew blood; but they always respected, nay, even glorified the army, as a sacred institution, the solid pillar of the Germanic union, the instrument of its greatness to come.