THE Germans were disposed at first to treat very lightly the new three-year service law of France, but the high military authorities of the German Empire are coming to regard that law with much more seriousness. They recognize that the position of Germany places her in grave danger. General von Bernhardi, speaking through a Berlin paper, says:
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“We are not threatened only by economic misfortune, but by an economic catastrophe. This last point can not be too earnestly insisted upon. Germany, in order to supply the needs of its population, is forced to rely continually upon foreign countries. . . . We fall short every year fifteen or twenty per cent in our annual supply of breadstuffs. The situation of our industries, therefore, in case of war, would be most critical. Germany is forced to import a great part of the natural products of which she has need. Our steel industry imports annually 12,000,000 tons of ore.”
“To sum up, we are in a dangerous situation, and find ourselves compelled either to augment our military power to such a degree that we would be sure of success, or to give up all hope of a great future. There is no choice in the matter. We must either be a great world power or abandon ourselves to an irremediable decadence.”
Possibly it is the dissemination of such sentiments that is changing the attitude of the German Socialists toward militarism. The German working man is coming over to the side of the kaiser in favor of a big army and a big navy. Leaders of the social democracy voted in the Reichstag for military laws that were a great source of gratification to Emperor William, and in their Socialist Congress recently held at Jena, they expressed themselves as much more favorable than formerly to a strong military program.
The war spirit is one of the significant conditions of this age. It is rampant everywhere; and notwithstanding all of the efforts that are made to promulgate “the gospel of peace,” it is increasing most rapidly. Men have made light of the prophecies which tell us that the spirit of war would characterize this age, which is to see the second coming of Christ. But if we will take a clear outlook at the facts, and give proper study to the prophecies, we will see that God knew how to announce these conditions long before they became fact in human experience.
