affairs-to which they added industrious application. It would be foreign to my subject were I to attempt any description of the reforms and changes effected in the Prussian army during the years immediately preceding Königgratz; but it is desirable I should remark that they were carried out by able, studious, practical soldiers who despised no minutiæ, and who spared no trouble and no thought in working out the great problems entrusted to them, on the due appreciation of which hinged all their hopes of future national greatness. Above all things, be it remembered that it was during a dark and gloomy epoch of Prussian history, whilst she lay sunk beneath the contemptuous neglect of Europe, that her present military efficiency was developed, and her strength built up. During the period to which I refer, few statesmen or generals concerned themselves with what was passing in a poor little modern kingdom which most thought it rather a courteous concession to reckon amongst the great Continental powers.

Yet it was then that the able soldiers whose names first became known to fame in 1866 were quietly, in an unobtrusive and methodical fashion, creating that military system which is at once the admiration of all nations, and the model upon which they strive to form their armies. Their doings and the results they had achieved were, however, preceived by at least one man, and duly reported to his Government in despatches of which the world in general knew nothing until they were published by the Prussians themselves, having been captured, amongst other official documents, near Paris in 1870. In a manner that does infinite credit to his patriotism and to his abilities, Baron Stoffel compared the shortcomings of his own army with the order and efficiency which characterised that of Germany. He pointed out the excellence of the machine, not only in design, but in the intelligent and yet easy manner in which it was worked, bringing to light the rapidity with which it was set in motion, and the great improvements that had been introduced into its mechanism after the experience gained in the Seven Weeks' War.'

6

His warnings passed unheeded; the rulers of France were so blinded by self-confidence and unreasoning pride, that when the First Minister declared war in 1870, he said that he did so with a light heart.' But when crushed by defeat she made peace, and as a first duty had to reorganise her military system, Baron Stoffel's letters served to indicate the point from which her military administrators should start in their work.

The publication now under review affords us a mass of information as to the manner in which that work has been carried out, and affords us ample materials for estimating the present military strength of France. We are bound to acknowledge that it is extremely dry reading; the author being evidently afraid lest he should afford any information that had not been published to the world in Paris. He

gives us most interesting figures as to what the strength of the Frenc army should be, but he throws no light upon what it actually number at this present time: he describes the organisation and objects of th military colleges and army establishments, but he tells us nothing of their present condition, or whether they have succeeded and answered the purposes for which they were created. It is well known that the archives of the Intelligence Department contain ample information as to the present condition of the French army, and as to its value as a military weapon in the hands of those who wield its power; but this is kept for the ear of the Minister of War, the Commander-in-Chief, and other high officials. It is of little use to know that an army numbers half a million of men, unless we are told their value as soldiers. This reticence is unfortunately necessary on the part of officials, especially in works published by official departments. I shall therefore endeavour to clothe with flesh the skeleton of dry details and figures supplied by Major East of the present condition of an army that may possibly play a great part in this coming year.

Before proceeding to deal with the figures in this book, a word, in passing, on the department from which it emanates will not be out of place. That most important branch of our army headquarter staff is in reality of very recent date, although nominally we have long had a department that was supposed to fulfil its duties. Formerly it was little better than a badly arranged collection of maps and statistical information about foreign countries. Now, under able direction, it has assumed its true position in relation to our army, and is engaged in working out the great military problems connected with the defence of Great Britain and of her distant possessions. It performs, in fact, what are generally regarded as the highest and most important duties devolving upon the staff of an army. Upon these duties its officers have been working studiously and in an unobtrusive manner for some years past. Works, similar in nature to that now before us, have already been published by it on the armies of most European nations; and I feel convinced that, should war at any time be forced upon us, our Intelligence Department will be found fully as equal to its duties as the corresponding department in any foreign army can have proved itself to be.

General Trochu, in his remarkable book on the French Army in 1867, said: 'Nous nous sommes endormis dans la satisfaction de nousmêmes; nous nous sommes détournés du travail, négligeant les efforts, les recherches, les comparaisons, qui créent le progrès.' This selfsatisfaction, this vain belief in the greatness of the French people and the invincibility of its army-sentiments converted into articles of national faith by the untruthful historians of the First Empireprecluded all inquiry into the grounds upon which that faith was based, and in 1870 prevented a sound comparison being instituted

between the real military strength of France, even as regards actual numbers, and that wielded by Germany. Had not the power of Prussia been destroyed before by the French army? and why should it be doubted by a generation of Frenchmen educated in the writings of M. Thiers that what was so easily and effectively achieved in 1806 should not be re-enacted in 1870? Frenchmen travel so little beyond their own territory, they know so little of what is taking place elsewhere being prevented studying the press and current literature of other countries by their ignorance of foreign languages-that the great changes introduced into the Prussian army in 1859-60 were practically unknown in France. Baron Stoffel endeavoured to impress the Emperor and his War Minister with their importance, but without effect; the information he gave, the warnings he sounded, fell on stony ground and bore no fruit; la lutte de l'imprévoyance, de l'ignorance et de l'ineptie contre toutes les qualités opposées, la prévoyance, l'instruction et l'intelligence' ended, as such a struggle must always do, in defeat and in well-deserved disaster.

In 1845-46 the army of France numbered about 300,000 men raised by conscription in accordance with the law passed in 1832, which law, however, allowed the rich to purchase exemption from personal service by procuring others to serve in their stead. The annual contingent was then fixed at 80,000 men, of which a proportion-determined annually by the Chambers-only joined the colours, the remainder being allowed to remain at their homes on leave. Its cost to the country was about 10,000,000l. per annum.

No great or very important changes were made in the law of 1832 until 1868, although the number given, forming the annual contingent, varied from time to time according to the contingencies of peace or war. Sadowa and General Trochu's uncompromising exposé of the condition of the French army in 1867 seem to have waked up the military authorities of France to a realisation of the weakness of their army. That in actual numbers of soldiers ready for war it was far inferior to the army Prussia could assemble in a few weeks on the Rhine, seems then to have been recognised for the first time, whilst the absence of any really reliable reserve to fill up the losses occasioned by war dawned upon the whole people as a surprise. It was felt that, if their old position in Europe was to be maintained, their military force should consist of 800,000 men, one half of that number being the strength of the standing army in peace, the other half being its reserve. The army law then framed, establishing the principle of universal compulsory service, was devised with that object in view; if fully carried out it would have placed nine annual contingents of 100,000 men each at the disposal of the Government, whilst the formation of a great reserve army, to be called the National Guard Mobile,' was also decreed. This latter was to consist of all the young men not included in the annual

contingent for the regular army, and it would, it was estimated, when the new military system had reached its normal condition in 1875–76, give a reserve force of 500,000 men. The Chambers would not, however, agree to all the provisions of the law as laid before them by Marshal Niel, and altered those bearing upon the formation of the Guard Mobile so materially as to preclude all possibility of its ever becoming a really efficient reserve force. Indeed Marshal le Bœuf, who succeeded Niel as Minister of War, seems to have so thorough recognised this, that he took little trouble to give effect to tha portion of the new military law. The result was that the declaration of war in 1870 found France without the reserve army which it had been one of the chief objects of the law, as proposed by Marshal Niel, to secure. A few battalions of this Guard Mobile' had been organised at Paris, and a few were in the eastern fortresses; but as a reserve it existed only on paper, and the small portion which had been drilled was so utterly worthless, from lack of discipline, that, after a short sojourn at Châlons, it was found necessary to send it back to Paris. Had it been even possible to have found officers and noncommissioned officers for it, and to have mobilised it to its full strength, the arsenals did not contain a sufficient supply of breechloading rifles or of clothing, &c., to have armed and equipped a reserve force of 500,000 men.

In July 1870 the war strength of the regular army of France was 567,000 men; but deducting from that number the gendarmerie, the troops composing the depôts, and the garrisons at home and in Algeria, the force available for field operations against Germany would not number more than a little over 300,000 men. This was divided into eight army corps and three reserve divisions of cavalry, consisting in all of 368 battalions, 252 squadrons, 984 field-guns, and three regiments of engineers.

The punishment that pursued the crime, the madness, of declaring war against Germany, whose field army was two-thirds stronger, and possessing vast and fully organised reserves of well drilled and well disciplined men behind it, is a matter of history with which I need not here concern myself. Without seeking for the national characteristics peculiar to either combatant to account for the overwhelming disasters that befel France as the result of their act of criminal folly, the disproportion between their armed strength is amply sufficient to account for the result. From the first general action-not, of course, including the painful episode now only remembered from having been impiously announced to the world as the Baptism of Fire' of the boy prince-to the final destruction of the regular army, Napoleon's troops were outnumbered, I may say, in every battle. If the French military system had been a machine in good working order, and capable of being easily and effectively put in motion, the disproportion in numbers between the combatants

in the early engagements on the frontier ought to have been reversed; and it may be fairly assumed that under such circumstances their immediate results would have been favourable to the French, whose regular troops fought even against odds in those early battles with courage and devotion. It was those early defeats that began the demoralisation which culminated in Sedan. It is commonly believed in England that the French fought badly all through the war. This is a gross libel upon their regular army; for, although badly handled at Gravelotte and in the actions round Metz, its courage and actual fighting qualities were conspicuous. Sedan and Metz were its graves; and the ghosts of armies subsequently collected by a Ministry of avocats could not be expected, in the nature of things, to maintain the ancient prestige of French military power, when called upon to face the best regular army in Europe. Numerous as were the shortcomings of their leaders, imperfect as was their military system, vain, presumptuous, and ignorant as the regimental officers may have been, one need not go back to all these unfortunate facts to account for the complete collapse of the French military power in 1870: their armies were crushed by superior numbers. Defective as their regular army was, it could most certainly have protected France from the disasters which overwhelmed her, if the military forces of Germany had not been numerically as well as morally so vastly superior to hers. The great numerical superiority of the German army enabled it to deal such crushing blows at the outset of the campaign, that the demoralisation they engendered among MacMahon's soldiers rendered them subsequently an easy prey at Sedan.

The French have never been good at fighting a losing game. Reverses with us and with our cousins, the Americans, serve to stimulate to increased exertion, to give us renewed energy; but with the Latin races it is otherwise: misfortune engenders despair; there is a want of self-reliance in their disposition that tends to convert early failure in any undertaking into demoralisation, and with all people, when demoralisation has once taken hold either of individuals, or of communities, or of armies, it is likely to degenerate quickly into cowardice. The élan on which the French pride themselves so much is the offspring of success, and success only. First blood' has even with us been always regarded as an omen of good fortune, but to a French army it is a preface essential to victory.

If I am correct in saying that much of the disasters that befel the French army in 1870 arose from the demoralisation in its ranks engendered by the defeats it experienced at the opening of the campaign through insufficiency of numbers, I have given ample reason why it is worth our while to examine what would be the fighting strength of France next spring should her interests require her to appear as a belligerent in Europe. Let us glance in passing at the great reforms recently introduced into her military organisation, and the improved