Consider, on the other hand, what we should suffer if we were to lose.  All the troubles of the last ten years would be with us still, but in a greatly exaggerated form.  A larger and stronger Germany would dominate Europe and would overshadow our lives.  Her coast line would be increased, her ports would face our own, her coaling stations would be in every sea, and her great army, greater then than ever, would be within striking distance of our shores.  To avoid sinking forever into the condition of a dependant, we should be compelled to have recourse to rigid compulsory service, and our diminished revenues would be all turned to the needs of self-defense.  Such would be the miserable condition in which we should hand on to our children that free and glorious empire which we inherited in all the fullness of its richness and its splendor from those strong fathers who have built it up.  What peace of mind, what self-respect could be left for us in the remainder of our lives!  The weight of dishonor would lie always upon our hearts.  And yet this will be surely our fate and our future if we do not nerve our souls and brace our arms for victory.  No regrets will avail, no excuses will help, no after-thoughts can profit us.  It is now—­now—­even in these weeks and months that are passing that the final reckoning is being taken, and when once the sum is made up no further effort can change it.  What are our lives or our labors, our fortunes or even our families, when compared with the life or death of the great mother of us all?  We are but the leaves of the tree.  What matter if we flutter down today or tomorrow, so long as the great trunk stands and the burrowing roots are firm.  Happy the man who can die with the thought that in this greatest crisis of all he has served his country to the uttermost, but who would bear the thoughts of him who lives on with the memory that he had shirked his duty and failed his country at the moment of her need?

There is a settled and assured future if we win.  There is darkness and trouble if we lose.  But if we take a broader sweep and trace the meanings of this contest as they affect others than ourselves, then ever greater, more glorious are the issues for which we fight.  For the whole world stands at a turning point of its history, and one or other of two opposite principles, the rule of the soldier or the rule of the citizen, must now prevail.  In this sense we fight for the masses of the German people, as some day they will understand, to free them from that formidable military caste which has used and abused them, spending their bodies in an unjust war and poisoning their minds by every device which could inflame them against those who wish nothing save to live at peace with them.  We fight for the strong, deep Germany of old, the Germany of music and of philosophy, against this monstrous modern aberration the Germany of blood and of iron, the Germany from which, instead of the old things of beauty, there come to us only