42 MY MEMOIRS

of the sons of officers and government officials whose thoughts are far removed from economics, and who are not attracted by the subject. The lonely man, with no requirements of his own, brought with him little sympathy for the development of industry. He was therefore an opponent of colonial expansion at first, although when ordered he performed the military share of the acquisition of colonies with skill and energy.

II

When I attempted during my period of office to do justice to the money-making classes, and in the spirit of Stosch to revive once more the cutlivation of maritime interests that had been broken off in 1883, I ran up against many of the irregularities which have arisen during the course of German history. Misplaced economy and petty bureaucratic narrowness have made our way into the world difficult. The navy had more ample occasion to feel and realize this than the army. Its duties on the whole gave it a certain world-perspective. Until the great war, the army took the study of the world, and particularly of England, much less to heart. In all essentials it marched into the world-war with the old ideas of a " two-front" war, and with a natural superiority which it possessed over the navy in consequence of the prevailing land tradition in Germany; it still looked upon the fleet indeed as a kind of pioneer detachment of the army, unmindful of the fact that the real main front was the sea front,