for the Powers to continue longer in the path of
armaments and that they ought to look each other in the face and
demand where these great armaments and this extension of forces
are conducting them. He writes:

"How can one believe it possible to solve
international questions by means of the veritable
cataclysm which will constitute, with the present
means of destruction, war waged between the five
great Powers, by ten millions of soldiers?... In
this war explosives so powerful will be employed
that every grouping of troops on the flat country
or even under the protection of fortifications
will become almost impossible and that, therefore,
the preparations of this character made in
expectation of the war will become useless....

"The future war will see the use of a great
quantity of new aids to war, bicycles, pigeons,
telegraph, telephones, optical instruments and
photographic instruments for the purpose of
mapping from a great distance the positions
occupied by the enemy and means to observe the
movements of the enemy such as observing ladders,
balloons and so on....

"In the future war every body of troops holding
itself on the defensive or found taking the
offensive, when it is not the question of sudden
assault, will have to fortify itself in a chosen
position and the war will be confined principally
to the form of a series of combats in which the
possession of fortified positions will be
disputed, and in which the assailant will have to
meet the accessory defensives in the neighbourhood
of the fortifications such as barricades, barbed
wire, etc., the destruction of these objects
costing many victims.... The infantry, when on the
defensive, will dig itself in. The conduct of the
war will depend, in a large measure, on the
artillery."

According to our author, who foresaw "No Man's Land" between the
two opposing forces, "there will be formed a certain zone
absolutely impassable in consequence of the terrible fire with
which it will be inundated from a short distance from each side."
Bloch adds: "This war will last a long time and entire nations
will be seen in arms or rather the flower of each nation. Germany
will begin the war by throwing itself on France and then, using
the many German railroads, will turn against Russia. By virtue of