“That’s it,” exclaimed M. von Arnim, grasping at the comment, which had been made for my own edification alone, as a eulogium. “In France you cultivate individual initiative, but we avoid it like the pest. The whole aim of our training is to break it down. All we need is to produce somnambulists, performing such and such an action upon such and such an order; not reflecting, not reacting, but acting merely, passively, by instinct, responding to the order as a well-trained thoroughbred responds to the pressure of your knee. The soldier must not think. Above all he must not think. If we attribute so much importance to the rigorous carrying out of movements, if we push to the point of mania our fondness for these drill-ground evolutions which you regard as useless and ridiculous, it is because they break down thought, rout it, weary it, put it to sleep, and annihilate it; because they reduce the human being to the level of a pure automaton. Show me a man who, by persistent drilling, has been emptied of thought, and I will show you a good soldier! “On the battlefield, automatic obedience and fear of the superior officer take the place of courage. This doctrine has but one inconvenience: we shall sacrifice more men than you when we have to attack. This is of no consequence. We have less reason than France to make a thrifty use of our soldiers. Germany is prolific.” * * * * * This German army, what a powerful mould it would constitute for a healthy race, one filled with the pride of youth but still requiring to be formed, one which had not yet emerged from the simple gregarious stage, one without any of those dispersed indurations due to the appearance of irreducible individualities—a race still boneless and plastic. I know not whether it was due to my actual experiences, or simply to French prejudice, but I came to doubt the reality of German liberalism, and to regard as isolated and uprooted exceptions those young men in whose company I had recently breathed the pure air of democracy.