CHAPTER XIV

State; also the building up of the German Army, brought up to date with modern requirements. The change from the idea of individual defence to national defence as a duty sprang directly from that State formation and the new principles which it introduced. It is impossible to exaggerate the significance of that event. The German nation, disintegrated by excess of individualism, became disciplined under the Prussian Army organism and recovered by its means at least some of the capacity for organization which had been lost. By the process of military training, we recovered for ourselves as a nation what other nations have always possessed in their pursuit of unity. Therefore the abolition of the obligation of military service—which may have no point for dozens of other nations—is of fateful signifi¬ cance to us. Given ten generations of Germans with¬ out the discipline and education of military training, and delivered over to the evil influences of the dis¬ unity which is in their blood—and our nation would have lost the last relics of independent existence on this planet. The German spirit would have made its con¬ tribution to civilization solely under the flags of foreign nations, and its