6 ing of their various arms, in the constitution of their staff, in general organisation, and finally in administration. These, or even a part of these advantages, might well account for the victories that awed the world in the campaign of last autumn. But our task would be incomplete did we not allude to that highest branch of military science which is founded on principles that have never varied since Alexander, and Hannibal, and Cæsar won their triumphs, and has had in all civilised ages attractions for the thoughtful reader. The principles of strategy are, indeed, unvarying; but the right application of those principles depends on the genius of the general, and his mastery of his art. In nothing has the steady strong will of the King of Prussia, acting through the patient and yet versatile agency of his trusted advisers, displayed itself more strongly, than in the care with which Von Moltke and his staff have followed up the lessons of their patriotic countryman, Clausewitz, and learnt to modify old rules of strategy to new inventions. For Clausewitz was the first to show in theory that the socalled principles of the art of war must be intelligently applied according to circumstances, and not used by formal method. Hence it is that—to give one most striking instance-we find the exterior lines' condemned of old for moderately sized armies, become the practice of a Prussian strategist when throwing 300,000 men into Bohemia in 1866, and nearly twice that number into France four years later. The reason of this modification is obvious. When such masses of men are to be brought suddenly and simultaneously into action, it can only be done by moving them from different points by different routes against the enemy. To mass them on one or two parallel lines of advance would be to oppose only part of the striking force to the enemy awaiting it, and the apparent risk of division is more than compensated for by the celerity and the development of front gained. There must of course be present the condition that each army is of itself for the time so strong as not to be liable to be wholly crushed by a sudden movement of the enemy's main force without the other's arriving to its aid. It was to maintain this condition that, as we presume, Herwarth's army was joined in 1866, and Steinmetz's in 1870, to the central, force (in each case under Prince Frederic Charles) instead of making an independent movement as the third body under the Crown Prince was in both campaigns directed to do. Had MacMahon's force been increased at the end of July, and the Emperor's diminished until their proportions were reversed, so that the former became the main defensive army, the latter a mere detached wing, there would not have been only a general similarity, but a marvellous parallelism between the openings of the two campaigns. In each case, moreover, the first successes were so decisive that henceforth all hope of equality passed away. But especially was this the case in the late war after the defeats of the French on the frontier, when their weakness numerically and morally became so apparent, that boldness, ever increasing with new successes, became the simple key to the later portion of the German strategy. To study that of the vanquished side in detail, would but be to give the history of a long series of blunders. As a memorable example of these, we may point out that the signal error with which the Emperor, by his own admission, began the war, was committed in direct opposition to all right principles. The defensive, as Clausewitz has remarked, is the natural strategy of the weaker party, its object being, by the use of artificial aid, to balance material superiority. Instead of following this view, the Emperor, trusting to the favourite élan of which his army claimed a monopoly, resolved to begin by placing his whole field force upon the frontier. He tells us that he knew the enemy's numbers to be double his own. He must have known also from the experience of 1866 that they would be ready to meet him in a fortnight. Yet in seeking the fancied advantages of a bold offensive, which his inferior administration made in the end an impossibility, he neglected all the necessary means of defending France, and disseminated her whole available forces where defeat, rapidly followed up, must entail their destruction, or at least the fatal disorganisation of a long retreat. It is easy now to criticise this error, and those that followed it; the easier that Napoleon III., in writing his Apology, has placed the means of his condemnation in our hands. But how different might have been the fate of his dynasty and country had he conformed his operations to the weakness which he clearly recognised. Commanding not more than one half of the armies moved against him, he should beyond doubt from the first have kept them on the defensive, withdrawn at least as far as the Moselle at the outset, and should have held no position but such as was both strong in itself and easy to retreat from. Every mile that he fell back towards Paris would have weakened his adversaries and given his own troops more means of support, until the original preponderance of the Germans might in the end have been turned against them. To show that these speculations are not mere fancies, let us suppose that his forces, united without risking a Forbach and a Woerth, had yet been so suddenly and sharply beaten on the Moselle that the left half had been cut off and separated, as Bazaine's army actually was, from its proper right wing under MacMahon this very misfortune should have been all the stronger argument for the steady retreat of the latter to a safe position near Paris. For Paris, as we know, could have been defended for a while by the reserves, whilst the field army, if not sufficient to meet the Prussians in open battle, might, by its judicious use in threatening their communications, have easily frustrated their design of investing the capital. Does anyone suppose that the Germans would have even ventured to show themselves seriously before it last September, had MacMahon with 150,000 men been planted north of Soissons on their flank, and his rear and flank sheltered by the northern fortresses-in short, if he had occupied that very position in which Faidherbe with 40,000 ill-trained levies gave the German staff serious uneasiness three months later? History and theory alike declare that the siege of Paris under such circumstances would have been impossible. In closing our review we feel that we may have disappointed some readers by speaking almost solely of the early portion of the war, to the neglect of that second stage, when France armed her republican levies as in the old war of invasion, after ridding herself of the incubus of monarchy, so as to use her irregular energies the more freely. Let us briefly state why we have purposely done this. 6 Without asserting (in the words attributed to Von Moltke when speaking of the American civil war) that the educated soldier cannot profit by studying the scrambling of armed mobs,' the lesson conveyed by such scrambling, as it has been witnessed recently, opposed to a finished soldiership, is too plain to need elaborate discussion. It is simply that in this age of scientific thought, war must be treated as a science. No nation has ever had the same opportunity of testing the power of the bare enthusiasm of armed myriads of levies in defence of her soil as France as had of late; and no nation has ever succumbed more miserably and hopelessly to the invader. D'Aurelle de Paladines might bring 150,000 of such recruits into decent order by his iron discipline; but he could not prevent them marching to the rear by whole corps as soon as the first rumour of disaster was whispered through his troops, then but a few miles advanced beyond the intrenchments before Orleans, which they at once retired into only to pass through and abandon. Chanzy proved capable of holding a mass of them bravely together for days about Beaugency against the repeated attacks of a lesser force of Germans; yet after winning their confidence, he found his forces melt away hopelessly in detail when he scattered them forwards from Le Mans to defend one of the strongest districts which France could offer him for the purpose of irregular warfare. Faidherbe won such mastery over his levies, as to twice fight drawn battles against inferior numbers by holding rigidly a chosen position; but his army broke at once into confusion and ruin when he attempted to maneuvre it before St. Quentin on open ground in face of half its number of Prussians. Bourbaki was able to carry an enormous mass of these Mobiles with him across France to try that bold offensive on which Frenchmen pin their faith; but he arrived below Belfort only to be repulsed in attacking an army numbering a third of his own, and to be absolutely destroyed on his retreat by another of the same inferior strength. In these days of vast projects for arming our nation, proposals which imply either a burden intolerable to the working classes, if the levies are really to be trained, or a delusive paper show of strength if they are but mustered, it is well to get rid of illusions which may hinder real reform. We do not want, as we five years since wrote in these pages, a large army: but what we have should be in every branch ready to expand at call to a size sufficient for our actual necessities. It should be highly trained, and the discipline for which our service is renowned should be fairly maintained. Its officers should be educated, both by theory and practice, to the full proportion of their respective responsibilities. Its organi sation should have no false economy in peace that would make it unfitted for the calls of war. Such an army, we are certain, might be obtained by us without undue expenditure or oppressive conscription; and to the end that our defence may be thus secured, we invite our statesmen and their advisers to meditate deeply on the lessons of the war which has just shattered a great empire, the heritage of Napoleon, into ruins, and raised up a greater military power than that of France to overshadow Europe. V.a.1712814 No. CCLXXIII. will be published in July. INDEX. A Admiralty, Tory indictment against the, 122-stocks of coal abroad, B 'Berlioz, Hector, Mémoires de,' review of, 33-his early life, 44-his Black Sea, Neutralisation of, see Treaties. Broughton, Lord, review of his 'Recollections of a Long Life,' 287— Γ |