Excerpt from The Junker War: Who Began the War; Why the War Was Made; And What the End Will Be<br><br>But not even an Emperor can detach himself from the driving forces of his environment, and the forces in Germany that shaped towards the present war enveloped the whole nation. Not simple forces, but complex forces, arising out of national needs. Not arising from ambitionsmerely and the desire for dominance, but weighted and sharpened by the growing neces sities of a great modern industrial nation with a popul'ation rapidly growing. In effect, we must take into account the economic pressure in Ger many if we are to understand fully why the criminal folly of this war was perpetrated.<br><br>The tap-root of it all, no doubt, was Prussian Junkerism. This crime was brought to birth by the same spirit that inspired' Bismarck and Moltke to strike down, first Austria in 1866, and then France in 1870, in order that a unified Germany might be created, holding a predomi nant position in Central Europe. That was the ambit of the ambitions of Bismarck; ambitions which, being attained, were cautiously and sedulously restrained. With political insurances, and re-insurances, he safeguarded his beloved German Empire. Thus it stood; thus it remained secure.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.