i yo RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



adopted, and these measures applied alike to the 

 damage done by the French or the German forces. 



The new French frontier has, owing to the division 

 of territory, made necessary a reorganisation of the 

 military and religious services, and here again the 

 various interests which had to be conciliated were 

 most complicated. One of the most difficult matters 

 was the reconstitution of the documents bearing on 

 the identity of the soldiers who had disappeared, and 

 the regulating of their successions, while arrangements 

 had to be made for keeping in order the burial-places 

 of the two armies. The two governments, with 

 much good feeling, agreed that these burial-places 

 should, without distinction of nationality, be kept in a 

 proper state ; and at the present time the various spots 

 where the dust of 87,000 Frenchmen and Germans lies 

 mingled together are marked by a funereal monument. 



The dead who sleep upon foreign soil should ever 

 remind us of the danger of war to which a State is 

 constantly exposed. This is why a complete military 

 organisation is the best security for a country in these 

 days of gigantic armaments. The re-establishment of 

 our means of communication and the formation of 

 reserve forces are the objects to which patriotic pru- 

 dence should tend objects which are not unfortu- 

 nately yet reached. It is certain, however, that we 

 have obtained since 1870, despite difficulties of a 

 political, financial, administrative, and military order, 

 the required elements for our national defence. That 



