Middle-class Victorians were, to put it mildly, of two minds on the subject of “bureaucracy.” While the term itself was always used in a pejorative sense (it was principally associated with inefficiency, the suppression of individual freedom, and what would come to be called economic “irrationality”), Victorian Britons were nonetheless mightily proud of the accomplishments of both their efficiently-managed businesses at home and their well-drilled armies abroad. By 1871, many had also been greatly impressed by the German military machine, which seemed to have demonstrated through its rapid but crushing victory over France that large-scale organization and efficiency were not necessarily incompatible things.