Moreover, why trouble one’s conscience? Had not this system justified itself in 1870? These two Provinces, these five billions of moneys, wrested, extorted from France, were they not the two determining factors in the tremendous industrial impulsion which would open the gates to Germany’s commercial preponderance in all the markets of the world? No wonder the masses kept silent. Intensive militarism, then, became a religion of the State. Philosophers, litterateurs, and historians having done all they could to attain the dreamed-of purpose, others followed their lead. Each and every discovery in mechanics, optics, chemistry was studied and tested by its respective author in the light of the possibility of its practical adaptability and utility in the work of destruction. The works of art also showed the effects of the enveloping atmosphere. The Kaiser’s only daughter paraded in the uniform of a Hussar, while her august father talked of “keeping the powder dry.” One day, on his own domains at harvest time, he was seized by mad admiration at the sight of the millions of ears of golden corn. “They remind me,” he said, “of the ocean of lances of my Uhlans.” On another occasion, during a hunt near the French frontier, when the Kaiser was surrounded as usual by sycophants and toadies attired in all the resplendence of their military uniforms, the then Most Highest allowed a mysterious word to escape his lips. Having half drawn his sword, he snapped it back into its scabbard and exclaimed: “They tremble in Europe.” Then he burst out laughing. And now came the decade which preceded the world war. Germany rejected Great Britain’s proposal that each side should limit its naval armament and halt for a while. Convinced at this time that her tremendous military machine was not only invincible, but irresistible, Germany applied herself feverishly to a mad rush of naval construction with the object of making her shores intangible. The idea was that in this way Britain would be kept quiet and Germany would be able to proceed to crush the Franco-Russian entente and obtain continental domination. From this to universal control only one step was required. This was what the German military caste had in mind–that is to say, the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, and the 40,000 or 50,000 officers and civilians recruited from the nobility, high society, from the professions and the educated officials. And the crowd–the masses–would go to sleep each evening blinded to the facts, but convinced that numberless enemies were preparing to pounce covertly on their Fatherland. The great hope of the German Government from 1908 to 1914 was to get the war started without it being apparent that Germany provoked it.