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chanzy's campaign. 
DISCUSSION. 
The Chairman —I am sure Dr. Maguire will be very pleased, indeed, to 
answer any questions or reply to any remark upon bis most interesting lecture. 
I am only sorry that he should have thought it necessary for a single moment to 
say that such a subject is " dry.” 
Captain Grierson —There are only two points upon which I should like to 
make a remark. The first is what Dr. Maguire said about the German official 
account. I rather think that an account which is compiled and given out officially 
by the Staff of the Army as a record of a war ought to contain a precis of every¬ 
thing connected with that war, and that, therefore, the Germans have not eri'ed 
in going as far as they have into the details of the campaign of 1870-71. It is 
a historical record; I grant it is dry, I grant it is not a thing that you can sit 
down with your feet on the top of the fire-place to read; it is a work that you 
must sit down to study with maps and all that sort of thing, and it is a book of 
reference. In a book published after his death Yon Moltke acknowledged that it 
was not a popular account. He said he had been urged by his relations to write 
such an abbreviated history as should be within the comprehension of all, and, 
although I am sorry to say that the English translation of it is not all that could 
be wished, still in it we have what I look upon as Moltke’s precis of the official 
account, and it is to that I would refer officers who wish to study the strategy of 
the campaign and have not the time, or perhaps the inclination, to sit down to 
the more formidable study of the parent work. 
But there is one question I would like to ask Dr. Maguire, with a view to 
pointing a moral. We have heard a great deal of late years of the absolute im¬ 
possibility of the British Army ever taking part in wars in Europe outside of 
England, of British military forces having nothing more to say on continental 
questions, and of Great Britain having nothing to do with continental politics. 
I do not for a moment apprehend that we shall ever be engaged in war against 
Germany, but as a mere theoretical question of strategy I should like to ask Dr. 
Maguire, as he is a well-known authority in these matters, to give us his opinion 
as to what would have been the effect towards, I will not say the end of this 
campaign, but towards the time when the Germans started from Orleans to pursue 
General Chanzy towards Le Mans, of from 75,000 to 100,000 British troops 
being landed on the theatre of operations. It is rather outside the limits of the 
campaign, but as Dr. Maguire has talked about matters outside it towards the 
end of his lecture I should like to have his opinion upon what the effect of the 
arrival of an army, which would have been equal certainly numerically to the 
German forces which were spared from Metz to finish up the campaign of 
the Loire, would have been on the termination of that campaign. 
Dr. Maguire —I did not exactly catch the spot at which the gallant Captain 
would place the English troops. 
Captain Grierson —Say, in the most advantageous position on the coast. 
Lt.-Gen. Goodenough, c.b.—T he exact point was immaterial, I take it. 
Captain Grierson —I merely ask what would have been the effect. 
Dr. Maguire —You have a German force in the north and you have a French 
force at Amiens about 50,000 strong, and a French force at Orleans of 250,000 
