[Footnote 146: _Boo´d´ha_, the founder of a religion largely professed in Tibet, parts of N. India, Ceylon, Burma, China, and Japan.] [Footnote 147: The danger arising from the growing power of the Yellow peoples, chiefly the Chinese and Japanese.] [Illustration: A Zeppelin with part of the covering removed to show the interior.] CHAPTER XIV. THE DAWN OF "THE DAY." The great instrument of the Kaiser's ambition is his army. Every male who is a German subject can be called upon to serve as a soldier from his seventeenth to his forty-fifth year. Though this is the law, men who are not strong, or have to support a family, or intend to be ministers of the Church, are excused from serving. Most German boys, however, know from childhood that they will have not only to learn a trade or prepare themselves for a profession, but become soldiers as well. As a rule, Germans begin their military training at twenty-one. If a young man has done well at one of the higher-grade schools, and can afford to keep himself, he need only spend one year with the colours; all others must be trained for two years if they are in the infantry, and three years if they are in the cavalry and horse artillery. When this time is over they go back to their work, and belong to the reserve. The two-year men serve five years with the first-line reserve, and the three-year men four years. Large bodies of the reserve are called up each year for exercise, but the same men are not called up more than once in two years, and, as a rule, their service amounts to two periods of about thirty days each. From the first-line reserve men pass into the _Landwehr_,[148] or second reserve, for five or six years if infantry, and for a longer period if cavalry. They, too, are called up from time to time for training, which lasts from a week to a fortnight. Finally, they pass into the _Landsturm_, and are only called up now and then for roll-call. Except in such special times of stress as the present war, the _Landsturm_ are not required to serve in the field. Under ordinary conditions they leave the army altogether at the age of forty-five.