Now, if there is a lesson from our past history which stands out clearer than all others, it is that victory rests finally not in ships, not in arming the civil population to resist invasion, but in maintaining an army to fight on the Continent which must be in point of efficiency, if not in numbers, the mainstay of a coalition organised to fight that nation which menaces the balance of power in Europe.

The truth is that we did not play this part during the Napoleonic wars, nor are we ready to play the same part now. We were saved then by the reckless ambitions of a man who believed himself superhuman: and then only after a struggle which brought us to the verge of ruin. Do we imagine that in a future war we can rely on snatching victory from the false policy and divided aims of a Louis XIV. or from the mad schemes of a world-conquering despot. Is there any comparison between these and the brains of the German General Staff which crushed the whole regular army of France in a month, and was at the gates of Vienna within a few weeks of the outbreak of war? If this be the only means by which eventual success can be obtained, the whole question of universal service must be viewed in a different light. It may be objected that an army under a compulsory service system cannot be employed on foreign service. This is a mere quibble which is only due to gross ignorance of the actions of other nations. No country goes to war with the intention of fighting on its own territory if it can be avoided. On the contrary every effort is made to gain a start in mobilisation and deployment, so as to transfer the scene of operations at the outset to the enemy's territory. Or do those who argue thus really think there is an essential difference between transferring your troops to a foreign land by means of one to two hours' steaming, and of crossing a mountain range which marks the frontier between two hostile countries. Both Japan and Russia have compulsory service, yet in the late war the one transferred her troops across some hundreds of miles of sea to Corea, and the other brought her troops four thousand miles from Russia to the furthest confines of Asia. Nor are the sacrifices required of other nations demanded of From 150,000 to 200,000 men to be landed either in Belgium or in France at the outbreak of war would probably be sufficient to secure the balance of power under any conceivable circumstances. The balance of power means for us the independence

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of Holland and Belgium and the integrity of France. dangerous situation may ensue from any war in Western Europe. The rivalry which has existed ever since 1870 between Germany and France has been the most disquieting note in European politics, and whether this situation be solved finally by war or by a rapprochement between the two countries, the result will be equally serious for Great Britain. It can hardly be doubted that in any naval war with Germany, the latter would be compelled in self-defence to try to secure the mouth of the Baltic, but the infringement of Danish territory is comparatively unimportant beside that of Belgium, and yet it is well known that both in France and Belgium military opinion considers that, in the event of war, the French defences on the eastern frontier will be turned by a flanking movement through Luxemburg and Southern Belgium. The Belgian General Ducarne considers that this movement will be undertaken by six or eight army corps, while a holding attack is made all along the line from Verdun to Belfort. The situation, according to the eminent French military writer, General Bonnal, will be as follows: Both nations on mobilisation will place from 800,000 to 900,000 men in the first line out of a total of some 3,000,000 armed men. The eastern frontier is only 125 miles in length, and it is in any case impossible to maintain a greater number on this front, even were they ready in time. Owing to the strength of the French frontier a frontal attack would provide little chance of success, and the whole teaching of modern war is that the envelopment of one or both flanks of an enemy provides the only hope of victory. It is the manœuvre of Sadowa, of Sedan, and of Mukden. It is universally admitted that the flank to be enveloped must be the northern one, owing to various reasons, the chief of which is that it provides the shortest route to Paris. During the fortnight which will elapse between the order for mobilisation and the first engagements on the frontier, the Belgian Army will, it is believed, endeavour to save its face; it will leave garrisons in the Meuse fortresses and withdraw behind the defences of Antwerp.

Now conceive the situation from the German point of view. Rumours of every kind will be flying about, uncertainty as to the attitude of Holland and Belgium, and other Powers will prevail. To gain a great victory at the outset everything will point to

the necessity of pouring troops through Belgium and fighting a great battle under circumstances the most disadvantageous for the enemy. In modern war everything may depend upon the result of the first general action. The Germans have always laid stress on the perfection of mobilisation arrangements, on strategical railways and facilities for strategical deployment. For them success means the initiative at the commencement of the struggle. And if it be urged that nations are after all bound by treaties, and that the moral sense of a nation will prevent the violation of neutral territory, self-defence would be urged as justification for such action. It is a melancholy fact that might is right in war, and it is safer to assume that Germany in a war either with England or with France would invade Denmark or Belgium. It is not a large step from marching your troops through a neutral State to incorporating that State in your Empire, especially if selfinterest demands it, and a successful war with France would precipitate the absorption of the Netherlands into Germany. Any war in which Germany is victorious must constitute the gravest peril to the independence of these countries. If our people could only realise the danger involved by a German occupation of Antwerp, if they could only realise that the mouth of the Scheldt is very nearly as important to us as the mouth of the Thames, we should hear less about the defence of our coasts, as if the beginning and end of our duty were the preservation of our own hearths and homes. History may be misunderstood, but it cannot lie, and the fact that we have had to fight over and over again to prevent Belgium falling into the hands of a great naval Power should be sufficient to warn us of the danger to our own interests, even if we were not bound by the most solemn pledges to preserve its neutrality.

It is calculated by General Bonnal that the turning movement through Belgium will occupy twenty days at least from the outbreak of war, and a work has lately been written by a French officer in which the author has attempted to show that the war will be decided by the result of the first great battle in Lorraine. Modern wars show very clearly that the first action is all important. Under these circumstances the rôle of a National British Army is tolerably plain. Based on the sea, the effect of 150,000 men on the flank of any German advance, and supported by the Dutch

and Belgian forces, would be incalculable and probably sufficient to secure the abandonment of any scheme involving the violation of Belgian territory. This is the one essential demanded by history, by strategy and by the present situation in Europe. Whether our present striking force comes up to these requirements we will not stay to inquire; we know it will be largely composed of Militiamen and of Reservists, and its maintenance at the seat of war will involve sacrifices for which our resources are insufficient, nor is it intended at present to send out the whole force at once. We know that trouble is almost certain to break out in India and in Egypt should we be involved in a European war. Also, we may well ask: "Would any Government dare to send out such an expedition to Belgium at the outbreak of war as long as the enemy's fleet had not been destroyed, if it thereby denuded the country of regular troops?" There is no shirking the issues, and if such are our requirements we are bound to ask ourselves whether any system except compulsory service will enable us to meet them. It requires but little knowledge of history to realise that in view of the numbers of modern armies, we are far less ready to fight on the Continent than we were in 1793. We who failed against the raw levies of the Convention of France—are we ready to fight the machine forged by Moltke and Von Roon? At the bottom of all our trouble is the general ignorance of history and of war. The emergency is one of which no one can gauge the gravity. But if the nation is to realise the situation, its leading men must realise it first. Some national service party must appear to raise the cry for universal service, and a full comprehension of the nature of the war that is coming must be obtained. For we in England know nothing of these things. Our "sheltered people," who whined over the trumpery casualty lists of South Africa and were aghast when they read of the slaughter in Manchuria, must realise that these are but child's play compared with what they will be called upon to endure in a life and death struggle on the Continent of Europe. The coming struggle will resemble such wars as those of 1812, 1813, and 1814. It will require the same efforts as the War of Liberation in Germany, the Franco-German, and the American Civil War required. But what would our people say if they read in their daily paper of a Battle of Borodino, with its 75,000 killed and

wounded; of a Leipsic, with its 92,000; or the Battles of the Wilderness, with their 60,000? War has never come to us as it has come to Continental nations. We are proud of the traditions of our Army-of the records of Albuera and of Waterloo, but they were regular soldiers who fought there. It was otherwise at Möckern, in 1813, where the Landwehrmen of Prussia, armed largely with scythes and farm implements, after enduring a loss of 50 per cent., broke and routed the veterans of Marmont. It was otherwise at La Fère Champenoise, in 1814, where the French peasants in their sabots stood in squares to be annihilated by artillery, though repeatedly summoned to surrender. It was otherwise with the American volunteers, who suffered losses in battle without parallel in history-who fell at the "slaughterpen " of Fredericksburg and the "death-angle" of Spottsylvania. Do we suppose that we are to be spared the sacrifices which every other nation has been called upon to endure, or that we can again resort to the pitiful expedient of subsidising coalitions to fight for us? To whom much is given, of him shall much be required, and we have received our warning in South Africa and our example in Japan. But we shut our eyes to things which are written in blood upon our history. It is harder to advance against an enemy under cover, under the fire of magazine rifles, machine guns, and shrapnel, than it was to stand firm on the ridge of Waterloo with the round shot crashing through the ranks. Yet, instead of realising this, our failures in South Africa have been ascribed to any cause but the true one. Neither our generals nor our people had grasped the necessity for great sacrifice of life in war; and although the resources for making good such sacrifices were lacking, we have not yet adopted the only remedy. Our pessimists who speak of degeneration are as contemptible as our boasters and our peace-at-any-price politicians. We are no more degenerate than any other nations, certainly not nearly so degenerate as Prussia was in 1806; nor is anything in our history one-tenth as disgraceful as the wholesale capitulations and surrenders which marked the Campaign of Jena. It is not generally thought that we were degenerate in 1841, yet the story of the first Afghan War is one beside which the most "regrettable incidents" in South Africa sink into insignificance. During the American Civil War the Northern President,

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