In order to render effective the railways of the country, which as far as France is concerned are on strategic plans toward the western frontier, Germany has increased its establishment of railway engineers to fifty-four military companies. That is to say, no matter what sympathetic action might have been taken by German railwaymen in case of an international strike, the German railways could still have run with full staffs, and every man was trained to his place on the lines that would be concerned in the mobilisation and placing of troops on the western frontier of the country, to act against France. No Syndicalist movement could shake German power--the defensive action was too strong for that. Further, the railways of the state system, organised with a view to mobilisation of troops rather than peace requirements, are controlled not by capitalists, nor by political figures, but each by a colonel of the German Army, at the head of his military division of railway engineers, and the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of these railway engineers are qualified railwaymen; their military duties consist in the efficient performance of railway work. For it is no use forging a weapon that will, in time of need, prove as dangerous to the holder as to the one it is aimed against. As a final guard against trouble of this kind, Stieber laid down as a definite rule in 1884: "That no native of Alsace-Lorraine, even though performing his military service in Germany, should be either recruited or admitted in any capacity whatever for employment on the said railways." As to general offensive action, the first sign thereof lies in the vote, in February of 1893, of a credit of 80,000 thalers "to defray the expense of foreign publications useful to the policy of the Empire," combined with the appearance, in France, of the famous "Mesnard pamphlet" five months later. The pamphlet in question was a deliberate incitement to the men employed on French railways to take matters into their own hands and carry Republicanism on to sheer anarchy. "If you want your employees to be attentive and polite to the public," says the author, "try to give those employees a somewhat better idea of whom it is they toil and sweat to benefit. At present all that we know is that our work is not done precisely for the love of the thing, nor does it result in any improvement for ourselves. This being so, our sole object is to keep our situations and get through with our tasks. As far as the public are concerned, we take no notice of them, while they for their part behave in the most abusive manner toward us... "The employees should elect their chiefs themselves in accordance with the principle of universal suffrage... It would be merely logical if the employees had the right to choose who should give them orders, and to turn out those who proved unjust or incapable...