It certainly may be difficult for the citizens of the Union--happy beings they are for it--to put themselves in the place of a nation that knows it is surrounded on its open borders by jealous, hateful, and greedy neighbors; of a country that for centuries has been the battlefield of all European wars, the place of strife of all the European peoples. They, the members of a nation which for itself occupies a space nearly as large as Europe, almost half of a continent, protected on both sides by the ocean and on the other borders not seriously threatened for as long a time to come as may be anticipated, have no people's army because they do not need any; and yet they would--their history proves it--give their blood and that of their sons for the cause of their nation just as gladly as we, if the necessity for doing so came to them. Will they, therefore, reproach us for loving our country not less than they do theirs, only for the reason that we have a thousand times more difficulty in protecting it? Our general military service, which today is being defamed by the word "militarism," is born of the iron commandment of self-preservation. Without it the German Empire and the German Nation long ago would have been struck out of the list of the living. Only lack of knowledge or intentional misconception of our character could accuse us of having an aggressive motive back of it. On earth there is no more peaceful nation than Germany, providing she be left in peace and her room to breathe be not lessened. Germany never has had the least thought of assuming for herself the European hegemony, much less the rulership of the world. She has never greedily eyed colonial possessions of other great powers. On the contrary, in the acquisition of her colonies she was satisfied with whatever the others had left for her. And least of all did she carry up her sleeve a desire of extending the frontiers of the empire. The famous word of Bismarck, that Germany was "saturated" with acquired territory, is still accepted as fully in force to such an extent that even in case of her victory the question as to which parts of the enemies' territory we should claim for our own would cause us a great deal of perplexity. The German Empire could only lose as the national State she is in strength and unity by acquiring new and strange elements.