se may arise again. But if France and Russia had been allowed even
ten days' warning the German plan would have been completely defeated.
France alone might then have claimed all the efforts that Germany could
have put forth to defeat her.

Yet there are politicians in England so grossly ignorant of the German
reading of the Napoleonic lessons that they expect that Nation to
sacrifice the enormous advantage they have prepared by a whole century
of self-sacrifice and practical patriotism by an appeal to a Court of
Arbitration, and the further delays which must arise by going through
the medieaeval formalities of recalling Ambassadors and exchanging
ultimatums.

Most of our present-day politicians have made their money in business--a
"form of human competition greatly resembling War," to paraphrase
Clausewitz. Did they, when in the throes of such competition, send
formal notice to their rivals of their plans to get the better of them
in commerce? Did Mr. Carnegie, the arch-priest of Peace at any price,
when he built up the Steel Trust, notify his competitors when and how
he proposed to strike the blows which successively made him master
of millions? Surely the Directors of a Great Nation may consider the
interests of their shareholders--i.e., the people they govern--as
sufficiently serious not to be endangered by the deliberate sacrifice
of the preponderant position of readiness which generations of
self-devotion, patriotism and wise forethought have won for them?

As regards the strictly military side of this work, though the recent
researches of the French General Staff into the records and documents of
the Napoleonic period have shown conclusively that Clausewitz had never
grasped the essential point of the Great Emperor's strategic method,
yet it is admitted that he has completely fathomed the spirit which gave
life to the form; and notwithstandingthe variations in application which
have resulted from the progress of invention in every field of national
activity (not in the technical improvements in armament alone), this
spirit still remains the essential factor in the whole matter. Indeed,
if anything, modern appliances have intensified its importance, for
though, with equal armaments on both sides, the form of battles must
always remain the same, the facility and certainty of combination which
better methods of communicating orders and intelligence have
conferred upon the Commanders has rendered the control of gre