e extent, and
much more the Austrians, prepared an immensely greater provision of
heavy ammunition than their opponents, and entered the field with
large pieces of a calibre and in number quite beyond anything that
their opponents had at the outset of the campaign.

As to the second point:--

No peaceful nations, no nations not designing a war at their own hour,
lock up armament which may be rendered obsolete, or, in equipment more
extensive than the reasonable chances of a campaign may demand, the
public resources which it can use on what it regards as more useful
things. Such nations, to use a just metaphor, "insure" against war at
what they think a reasonable rate. But if some one Government in
Europe is anarchic in its morals, and proposes, while professing
peace, to declare war at an hour and a day chosen by itself, it will
obviously have an overwhelming advantage in this respect. The energy
and the money which it devotes to the single object of preparation
cannot possibly be wasted; and, if its sudden aggression is not fixed
too far ahead, will not run the risk of being sunk in obsolete
weapons.

Now it is clearly demonstrable from the coincidence of dates, from the
exact time required for a special effort of this kind, and from the
rate at which munitions and equipment were accumulated, that the
Government at Berlin came to a decision in the month of July 1911 to
force war upon Russia and upon France immediately after the harvest of
1914; and of a score of indications which all converge upon these
dates, not one fails to strike them exactly by more than a few weeks
in the matter of preparation, by more than a few days in the date at
which war was declared.

Under those circumstances, Berlin with her ally at Vienna had the
immense numerical advantage over the French and the Russians when war
was suddenly forced upon those countries on the 31st of July last
year.

But, as in the case of men, the advantage would only be overwhelming
during the first period. The very fact that the war had to be won
quickly involved an immense expenditure of heavy ammunition in the
earlier part of it, and this expenditure, if it were not successful,
would be a waste.

It takes about five months to produce a heavy piece, and the rate of
production of heavy ammunition, though slow, is measurable. At the
moment of writing this, towards the close of the second period, the
balance is not yet redressed, but it is in a fair way to b