[Junior]

"A group that supports the U.S. military is demanding an apology from Newsweek magazine's Eleanor Clift, who recently characterized America's armed forces as a "mercenary Army."

The Kaiser derided the British army as an "army of mercenaries," too.

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
A.E. Housman

These in the day when heaven was falling
The hour when Earth's foundations fled
Followed their mercenary calling
Took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended
They stood, and Earth's foundations stay.
What God abandoned, these defended
And saved the sum of things for pay.

[dighton]

Perfect.

That poem came to mind, but I didn't know of its reference to a remark by the Kaiser.