A Russian army of 4,000,000 is not necessary to self-defence.

Its inspiration can be due only to a policy of expansion at the cost of others, and its aim to extend and to maintain existing Russian frontiers.

As I write it is engaged not in a war of defence but in a war of invasion, and is the instrument of a policy of avowed aggression.
Not the protection of the Slavs from Austria, herself so largely a Slavic power and one that does not need to learn the principles of good government from Russia, but the incorporation of the Slavs within the mightiest empire upon earth--this is the main reason why Russia maintains the mightiest army upon earth.

Its threat to Germany, as the protector of Austria-Hungary, has been clear, and if we would find the reason for German militarism we shall find at least one half of it across the Russian frontier.
The huge machine of the French army, its first line troops almost equal to Germany's, is not a thing of yesterday.
It was not German aggression founded it--although Germany felt it once at Jena.

Founded by kings of France, French militarism has flourished under republic, empire, constitutional monarchy, and empire again until to-day we find its greatest bloom full blown under the mild breath of the third republic.