ABSTRACT
The non-German world has overwhelmingly considered Germany, and Prussia in particular, to be the native land of modern militarism. This militarism reached full growth in the army of imperial Germany prior to 1914, even before the advent of National-Socialism. In contrast, the continental European states had to work in a more difficult geographical situation. The system of universal military service was introduced in all great powers on the European continent. According to Alfred Vagts, the expression ‘militarism’ was coined in the controversy over the Second Empire in France. The new rational and technological militarism allied with the tradition and thus was able, in an overwhelmingly civilian age, to heighten the prestige of the professional caste of the soldiers. One of the gravest questions in the history of the origins of both the First and the Second World Wars is the extent to which this idea of preventive war served to bring on the catastrophes of 1914 and 1939.
