Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/112

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
80
MILITARISM

particular clearness in the muster of the reserve-soldiers, when the men called up are placed under military jurisdiction, which is claimed by the military authorities to last for the whole day, though it is manifestly against the law; there is not the slightest ground for establishing such a right, it is a simple usurpation. In this connection mention must further be made of the cadet corps and veterans' associations with their semi-official or semi-military organization, their aping of the military get-up, fiddle-faddle and junketings. A chief part in that department of militaristic activity is played by the mischievous reserve-officer system, which carries the military caste spirit into the civilian society and perpetuates that spirit and, which is still more important, places the higher officials of the state and communal civil administration, as well as those of the law and educational system, almost without an exception under military discipline, subjecting them to the militaristic spirit, to the whole militaristic view of life, and thus stifling in them in advance any inconvenient impulse of opposition that might possibly arise