' saluted the July 1914 Crisis and the outbreak of World War I: in the September issue, Karl Mayr wrote that the war signified "internal transformation". The magazine's nationalism became extreme over the following months, with Cossmann arguing in favor of ' ("victory peace") and Müller celebrating Prussia as a "heroic-aristocratic warrior state"; similarly, Hermann Oncken and Friedrich Meinecke wrote praises of militarism and Prussian virtues. ' promoted an increasingly radical right-wing platform, supporting militarists Alfred von Tirpitz and Erich Ludendorff while excoriating more moderate military and political elements. In 1916, Cossmann and his magazine defended Tirpitz's submarine war policy, submitting evidence that Tirpitz critic Veit Valentin had falsified military reports. These were times of notoriety for the magazine: prior to the war, ' circulation stood at a few hundred copies, rising to 3000-5000 ca. 1914, and increasing sharply after that, reaching 100,000 at times.