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war the annual increase was about 850,000, of whoman insignificant proportion emigrated. 1 This greatincrease was only rendered possible by a far-reachingtransformation of the economic structure of thecountry. From being agricultural and mainly self-supporting, Germany transformed herself into a vastand complicated industrial machine, dependent forits working on the equipoise of many factors outsideGermany as well as within. Only by operating thismachine, continuously and at full blast, could shefind occupation at home for her increasing popula-tion and the means of purchasing their subsistencefrom abroad. The German machine was like a topwhich to maintain its equilibrium must progress everfaster and faster.
In the Austro - Hungarian Empire, which grewfrom about 40,000,000 in 1890 to at least 50,000,000at the outbreak of war, the same tendency waspresent in a less degree, the annual excess of birthsover deaths being about half a million, out of which,however, there was an annual emigration of somequarter of a million persons.
To understand the present situation, we must appre-hend with vividness what an extraordinary centre ofpopulation the development of the Germanic systemhad enabled Central Europe to become. Before thewar the population of Germany and Austria-Hungary
1 In 1913 there were 25,843 emigrants from Germany, of whom 19,124went to the United States.