of weapons of tremendous power and deadliness, spread over an
area of vast extent, engaged upon battles that will necessarily last for
days, subjected to a nervous strain such as has never been experienced
in warfare? The responsibility of subordinate officers must, under such
circumstances, be far greater than it used to be; the commander cannot
keep everything under his eye. And, as already said, the officers will
be especially picked out for death. Under all these conditions, it is
likely that after battles with enormous slaughter, victory will be
claimed by both sides.

We must further take into account the influence of a modern war upon
populations. What will be the effect on the temper of modern armies if
war should be prolonged? How will the civil population receive the news
from the front? What convulsions must we expect when, after the
conclusion of peace, the soldiers return to their destroyed and
desolated homes?

A great European war of the future will, it may be assumed, be fought on
one or the other frontier of Germany--in the Franco-German area on the
western side; or the German-Austro-Russian area on the eastern--or on
both. Since it would be impossible under modern conditions for Germany,
with or without Austrian co-operation, to invade both France and Russia,
she would be obliged to defend one frontier while crossing the other. An
attack upon France would involve the traversing of a difficult stretch
of country in which elaborate arrangements have been made for defence;
and although the French army is not so strong as that of Germany, it
would have the enormous advantage of standing on the defensive. Even if
Germany were to gain initial successes through her superior swiftness in
mobilization, the difficulties of modern warfare are such that she could
not hope, even under abnormally favourable circumstances, to capture
Paris in less than two years, and long before then she would be reduced
to a state of entire economic exhaustion. It is to be borne in mind that
the invading army would constantly grow weaker, while the defenders
would be able to enforce the superiority now belonging to defence by
bringing up all their reserves.

Difficulties which would be, if possible, even harder to surmount would
attend a French attempt to invade Germany.

The elaborate plans that have been drawn up for an Austro-German
invasion of Russia would, in all probability, be doomed to failure. The
defensive system of Ru