The Prussian system, which has since been copied by all the great military nations of Europe, is, in its essential features, as follows: Every able-bodied man in the kingdom, upon reaching the age of twenty years, is available for military service; and each year there are chosen by lot sufficient recruits to maintain the army at its authorized strength. The great body of the male population is thus brought into military service. There are a few exceptions, such as the only sons of indigent parents, and a small number of men who are in excess of the force required. Any man who escapes the draft for three successive years, and all able-bodied men exempted for any cause from service in the regular army, are incorporated in the reserve. The term of service in the regular army is two years for the infantry and three for the artillery and cavalry. After being discharged from the regular army the soldier passes into the reserve, where he serves for four years. While in the reserve, he is called out for two field exercises of eight weeks’ duration each, and the rest of his time is available for his civil vocation. At the end of four years in the reserve he passes into the Landwehr, in which he is required to participate in only two field exercises of two weeks’ duration each. After five years in the Landwehr proper, he passes into the second levy of the Landwehr, where he is free from all military duty in time of peace, though still liable to be called to arms in case of war. From the second levy of the Landwehr he passes, at the age of thirty-nine years, into the Landsturm, where he remains until he reaches his forty-fifth year, when he is finally discharged from military duty. The soldier in the Landsturm is practically free from all military duty, for that body is never called out except in case of dire national emergency. By this system Prussia became not only a military power but “a nation in arms,” in the blaze of whose might the military glory of Austria and of France successively melted away in humiliating defeat. The careful military preparation of Prussia in time of peace was by no means limited to measures for providing an army strong in numbers. Every year her troops were assembled in large bodies for practice in the manœuvres of the battlefield. This mimicry of war, at first lightly regarded by the military leaders of the other European nations, produced such wonderful effects in promoting the efficiency of the army that it has since been copied in all the armies of Europe, and is now regarded as the most important of all instruction for war.