rmy."

"Certainly!" Westerling replied in his ready, confident manner.

"We hear a great deal about the precision and power of modern arms as
favoring the defensive," said the premier. "I have read somewhere that
it will enable the Browns to hold us back, despite our advantage of
numbers. Also, that they can completely man every part of their frontier
and that their ability to move their reserves rapidly, thanks to modern
facilities, makes a powerful flanking attack in surprise out of the
question."

"Some half-truths in that," answered Westerling. "One axiom, that must
hold good through all time, is that the aggressive which keeps at it
always wins. We take the aggressive. In the space where Napoleon
deployed a division, we deploy a battalion to-day. The precision and
power of modern arms require this. With such immense forces and
present-day tactics, the line of battle will practically cover the
length of the frontier. Along their range the Browns have a series of
fortresses commanding natural openings for our attack. These are almost
impregnable. But there are pregnable points between them. Here, our
method will be the same that the Japanese followed and that they learned
from European armies. We shall concentrate in masses and throw in wave
after wave of attack until we have gained the positions we desire. Once
we have a tenable foothold on the crest of the range the Brown army must
fall back and the rest will be a matter of skilful pursuit."

The premier, as he listened, rolled the paper-knife over and over,
regarding its polished sides, which were like Westerling's manner of
facile statement of a programme certain of fulfilment.

"We can win, then? We can go to their capital, or far enough to force a
great indemnity, the annexation of one of their provinces, perhaps, and
the taking over of their African colonies, which we can develop so much
better than they?"

Westerling took care to show none of the eagerness which had set his
pulses humming.

"To their capital!" he declared decisively. "Nothing less. For that I
have planned."

"And the cost in lives?"

"Five or six hundred thousand casualties, which means about a hundred
thousand killed."

"Ghastly! The population of a good-sized city!" exclaimed the premier.

"A small percentage out of five million soldiers; a smaller out of
eighty million population," Westerling returned.

"And how long do you think the war would last? How long the strain on
o