senti¬ ment, and proficient in bodily and military training, the result must of necessity be nil in a State whose tendency is not to desire to create such a force—which, in fact, detests the idea, since it is utterly out of har¬ mony with the intimate aims of the leaders—the corrupters of the State.
This is the case to-day. Is it not ridiculous for a government to be prepared to train some ten thousand men in a hole-and-corner fashion, when a few years earlier the State, having shamefully sacrificed eight and a half millions of highly trained soldiers, not merely had no further use for them, but, as a mark of gratitude for their sacrifices, exposed them to universal execration ?
2 I 6 MY STRUGGLE Is it expected that soldiers will be trained for a regime which besmirched and spat upon its most glorious soldiers, tore off their medals and badges, trod their banners underfoot, and cast contempt on their achieve¬ ments ? Or has this State regime ever taken a single step towards restoring the honour of the old Army, or towards forcing those who destroyed and abused it to answer for what they did ? Not one step ! On the contrary, these last can be seen occupying the highest posts under the State. And yet they said at Leipzig :
“Right goes with might.” Since, however, might is to-day in the hands of the very men who originally contrived the Revolution, and since that Revolution represents the meanest betrayal of the country, the most scoundrelly act in the whole of German history, there can surely be no reason why might of that char¬ acter should be increased by formation of a new young army. All sensible reasoning is against it.
If the State, as it is to-day, adopted the system of trained defence bands, it could never be applied to the defence of national interests outside the country, but could only be used for protecting the nation’s oppressors inside the country against the rage of the betrayed and bartered nation, which might one day rise in its wrath.