It was, I suppose, this assertion of personal liberty which drove our extreme Liberal wing before the war into that determined fighting of the Naval and Military Estimates year after year, that determined hatred of anything that looked like "militarism," and that constant belittlement of the soldier and his profession which so nearly handed us over, for lack of a reasonable "militarism," to the tender mercies of the German variety.

In the process of enlightenment the Americans have played a conspicuous part, in spite of the persistent belittlement of the military experts in the official German Press.