number, when it first passed into the army, about 275,000; but as each class must lose every year a certain number of men by death, by diseases which cause physical incapacity from service, and by emigration, the total army of first line must fall short of the total of seven times 275,000.  It may probably be taken at a million and a half.  In the second line come the twelve annual classes of Landwehr, which will together furnish about the same numbers as the standing army.

Behind the Landwehr comes the supplementary reserve, and behind that again the Landsturm, comprising the men who have been trained and are between the ages of thirty-nine and forty-five, the young men under twenty, and all those who, from physical weakness, have been entirely exempted from training.

During their two or three years with the colours the men receive an allowance or pay of twopence halfpenny a day.  Their service is not a contract but a public duty, and while performing it they are clothed, lodged, and fed by the State.  When passed into the reserve they resume their normal civil occupation, except that for a year or two they are called up for a few weeks’ training and manoeuvres during the autumn.

In this way all German citizens, so far as they are physically fit, with a few exceptions, such as the only son and support of a widow, receive a thorough training as soldiers, and Germany relies in case of war entirely and only upon her citizens thus turned into soldiers.

The training is carried out by officers and non-commissioned officers, who together are the military schoolmasters of the nation, and, like other proficient schoolmasters, are paid for their services by which they live.  Broadly speaking, there are in Germany no professional soldiers except the officers and non-commissioned officers, from whom a high standard of capacity as instructors and trainers during peace and as leaders in war is demanded and obtained.

The high degree of military proficiency which the German army has acquired is due to the excellence of the training given by the officers and to the thoroughness with which, during a course of two or three years, that training can be imparted.  The great numbers which can be put into the field are due to the practice of passing the whole male population, so far as it is physically qualified, through this training, so that the army in war represents the whole of the best manhood of the country between the ages of twenty and forty.

The total of three millions which has been given above is that which was mentioned by Prince Bismarck in a speech to the Reichstag in 1887.  The increase of population since that date has considerably augmented the figures for the present time, and the corresponding total to-day slightly exceeds four millions.

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The results of the British system are shown in the following table, which gives, from the Army Estimates, the numbers of the various constituents of the British army on the 1st of January 1909.  There were at that date in the United Kingdom:—–­