In actual war also there is an enormous exhaustion of military material, which must be constantly replaced, and this in turn demands the services of great numbers of trained artisans. The question of finance also cannot be overlooked. It needs vast sums of money to keep a modern army in the field, this increasing rapidly as the forces grow in numbers, and no national treasure chest is inexhaustible. Tax as they may, the war lords cannot squeeze out of their people more blood than flows in their veins, and exhaustion of the war-chest may prove even more disastrous than exhaustion of the regiments. For these reasons a limit to the size of armies is inevitable and in any great war this limitation must quickly make itself apparent. Chapter IV. GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR The Growth of German Importance—German Militarism—Great Britain’s Peace Efforts—Germany’s Naval Program—German Ambitions—Preparation for War—Effect on the Empire The influence of the European War permeated everything from and through the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The whole world, civilized and uncivilized, was drawn into this whirlpool of disaster—the majority of the population of the earth was actually at war. Was it possible that such a vast conflict—so far reaching in its racial and national elements, so bitter in its old and new animosities, so great in its territorial area, so tremendous in the numbers of men in arms—could come, as some commentators say, like a thief in the night or have fallen upon the world like a bolt from the blue! All available information of an exact character, all the preparation of the preceding few years, all the inner statecraft of the world as revealed in policy and action, prove the fallacy of this supposition. THE GROWTH OF GERMAN IMPORTANCE As a matter of fact one nation had been for nearly half a century the pivot upon which European hopes and fears have turned in the matter of peace and war, of military and naval preparation, of diplomatic interchange. During this period Germany rose to a foremost place amongst the nations of Europe, to the first place in strength of military power and organized fighting force, to the second place in naval strength and commercial progress. The growth itself was a legitimate one in the main; and, given the character of its people and their cultivated convictions as to inherent greatness, was inevitable. For other nations the vital question asked in diplomacy and answered in their military or naval preparations was equally inevitable: How would Germany use this power, against whom was it aimed, for what specific purpose was it being organized with such capable precision, such splendid skill? GERMAN MILITARISM