Magazinists of the World on the War
Condensed from the Leading Reviews
While the armies and generals of the belligerents are trying to execute by force the policies of their respective Governments, their publicists are not less busy in the work of voicing the national aspirations. Moreover, such a critical examination of the status of each armed Power, from its own standpoint and in comparisons and contrasts with its opponents, has never been conducted before the peoples of the world. It is a time of national heart-searchings, both among the warring nations and of neutrals whose destinies are only less affected. Résumés of this great process as reflected in the world's leading reviews appear below, beginning with the British publications.
Germany’s Long-Nourished Powers
THAT Germany has been preparing forty years for this war is flatly contradicted by J. Ellis Barker in his article entitled "The Secret of Germany's Strength," appearing in the Nineteenth Century and After for July.
Not forty years, but for 260 years, since Frederick William, the Great Elector, came to the Prussian throne, the slow-growing plants of German efficiency and thoroughness have steadily unfolded, Mr. Barker says, in the administrative, military, financial, and economic policy that make modern Germany. It was the Great Elector who "ruthlessly and tyrannously suppressed existing self-government in his possessions, and gave to his scattered and parochially minded subjects a strong sense of unity," thus clearing the way for his successors. Frederick William I. founded in the Prussia prepared by his grandfather "a perfectly organized modern State, a model administration, and created a perfectly equipped and ever ready army." Of him Mr. Barker says:
The German people are often praised for their thoroughness, industry, frugality, and thrift. These qualities are not natural to them. They received them from their rulers, and especially from Frederick William the First. He was an example to his people, and his son carried on the paternal tradition. Both Kings acted not only with thoroughness, industry, frugality, and economy, but they enforced these qualities upon their subjects. Both punished idlers of every rank of society, even of the most exalted. The regime of Thorough prevailed under these Kings who ruled during seventy-three years. These seventy-three years of hard training gave to the Prussian people those sterling qualities which are particularly their own, and by which they can easily be distinguished from the easy-going South Germans and Austrians who have not similarly been disciplined.
While the Great Elector prepared the ground, and King Frederick William I. firmly laid the foundations, "Frederick the Great erected thereon the edifice of modern Germany." Mr. Barker adds:
Among the many pupils of Frederick the Great was Bismarck. It is no exaggeration to say that the writings which Frederick the Great addressed to posterity are the arcana imperii of modern Germany. Those who desire to learn the secret of Germany's strength, wealth, and efficiency, should therefore most carefully study the teachings of Frederick the Great.