Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/45

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NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE
13

of the individual which it recognized (a want of security which thus made the arming of all necessary in a certain sense), than in the necessity of arming the nation or state for attack and defence against the foreign foe as well as was possible. The difference in the armament of the various classes of society assured at all times the possibility of employing the science of arms for the maintenance or the establishment of rule. The Roman slave wars exhibit this side of the question in a remarkable light.

The subject is also strongly illuminated by the German Peasants' War and the wars of the German cities. Among the chief direct causes of the unhappy outcome of the German Peasants' War must be reckoned the better military equipment of the clerico-feudal armies. However, the wars carried on by the cities in the XlVth century against those very armies were successful, not only because the art of making fire-arms was in an extraordinarily undeveloped stage as compared with the time of the Peasants' War of 1525, but above all because of the great economic power of the cities.