THE GERMAN NATION 



NOT since the hand of history first 

 began to write down the rise and 

 fall of nations has there been re- 

 corded a more wonderful story of a peo- 

 ple's existence than that to be found in 

 the annals of the Germans. The star of 

 their destiny more than once has mounted 

 to the zenith of European power, then 

 has passed down to the western horizon, 

 only to rise again, because of the extraor- 

 dinary recuperative strength of the Ger- 

 man race. 



This rise to imperial power and de- 

 cline to national impotence, succeeded 

 again by shifting strength, has been co- 

 incident with the rise of a great leader 

 and the succession of a weak one. 



"A world united" under Charlemagne, 

 Germany became "the land divided" 

 under his sons ; and from that day to 

 this the tide of German power has flowed 

 and ebbed according to whether genius 

 or mediocrity sat upon the German 

 throne. 



The Germany of today is a wonderful 

 empire — whatever the Book of Fate may 

 have in store for its tomorrow. Its peo- 

 ple are so old in the history of Western 

 civilization that Julius C^sar, when he 

 became governor of Gaul, encountered 

 them to the east of the Rhine, and bore 

 testimony to their fighting spirit and their 

 military prowess ; yet its government is 

 so young that men still on the sunny side 

 of fifty can remember when it came into 

 being. The present German Empire was 

 born out of the Franco-Prussian War ; 

 what its future shall be is now in process 

 of determination. 



SMALI, BUT MIGHTY 



The average American has read so 

 much about the might of the German 

 army, the prowess of the German navy, 

 the triumphs of the German factory, and 

 the commercial conquests of the German 

 exporter that he finds it a surprise when 

 he is told that Germany, territorially, is 

 so much smaller than Texas that a slice 

 as big as all New England could be cut 

 out of the Lone Star State and what re- 



mained would still be larger than the 

 German Empire. 



But if Germany be small in territorial 

 extent, it has been powerful in popula- 

 tion, strong in industrial resources, and 

 great in technical achievement. Only 

 Belgium, Netherlands, Japan, and the 

 United Kingdom, among the nations of 

 the earth, have a denser population. Only 

 China, India, Russia, and the United 

 States have a more numerous popula- 

 tion. Only Great Britain is a greater 

 buyer in the world's markets, and only 

 the United States and Great Britain are 

 greater sellers in those markets. 



How close has been the competition of 

 these three great countries for leadership 

 in the world's export trade is revealed 

 from an examination of the record. The 

 United States led in 191 3, with exports 

 valued at $2,428,(X>o,ooo ; Great Britain 

 came second, with $2,371,000,000; Ger- 

 many took third place, with $2,131,000,- 

 000; France, with fourth place, had an 

 export business of only $1,295,000,000. 



During the years in question Germany 

 imported nearly one-eighth of all the 

 world had to sell, and exported more 

 than one-ninth of what the world wanted 

 to buy. 



GERMAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS 



Although embracing only one-fifteenth 

 of the area of Europe, Germany, in 1912, 

 produced one-seventh of its wheat, a 

 fifth of its oats, more than a seventh of 

 its barley, more than a fourth of its rye, 

 and over a third of its potatoes. It yields 

 place among the producing nations of 

 Europe only to Russia. 



To what a remarkable extent the Ger- 

 man farmer has mastered the science of 

 agriculture is shown by a comparison of 

 his per-acre yields with our own. If we 

 had grown as much wheat to the acre in 

 1913 as the Germans, our crop would 

 have been two and a half billion bushels 

 instead of three-fourths of a billion bush- 

 els. If our farmers had grown as much 

 oats to the acre as the Germans, our 

 yield would have been 60 per cent of the 



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