■June 19, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER, 
vader; or (b) it V;'oi;ld divide the French forces 
into an avmy atteinptiiig to hold the frontier and 
forces attempting to save the capital; or, what is 
most likely of all, (c) a plan having been finally 
decided upon by the French General Staff and in- 
volving the abandonment of Paris would, when 
danger actually threatened, be overruled by poli- 
tical considerations and would fall into chaos. 
In either of these three contingencies the 
French Army was doomed to destruction. In the 
first it would be destroyed as an inferior force 
pitted against a superior one. In the second' those 
forces used for the defence of Paris would be 
separated from the rest of the army and each 
would be defeated in detail. (It was, in fact, this 
situation upon which the Germans gambled and 
lost just before the battle of the Marne.) In the 
third, they would simply be an easy prey, which 
they had been in 1870, at the mercy of a resolute, 
superior, and united enemy. 
(2) The march on Paris is obviously best 
achieved through the Belgian plain from the 
frontiers of Luxemburg to those of Switzerland, 
the French having a fortified frontier, a reduction 
of which would check an invasion whose success 
was essential to the general scheme. No obstacles 
as formidable threatened an advance through the 
Belgian plain. Further, there was here the best 
set of railway communications in especial, and 
the whole advance was backed by the best railway 
communications in Germany — to wit, those 
through the industrial districts and flat country 
which forms the north of the German Empire. 
Now to this advance through the Belgian 
plain there existed as obstacles the fortresses of 
Liege and Namur, and possibly some resistance 
from the armed forces of Belgium in the open 
field. But, in the first place, the enemy did not 
believe that the Belgian trained forces, such as 
they were, would offer resistance. In the second 
place, supposing Belgium to make some sort of 
resistance, he w as aware that no sufficient body of 
trained troops, particularly gunners with their 
munitions, existed for the defence of the Belgian 
frontiers. In the third place, he believed he could 
deal with those frontiers after a fashion, which 
concerns the next point in this table. 
(3) The third theory upon which the war was 
waged by the enemy was that modern permanent 
fortifications would give way very rapidly — in 
a matter of a few hours or days — in the bom- 
bardment from great mobile howitzers, such as 
the Austrian service especially had designed 
and produced. All that was required was 
a sufficient concentration of such fire upon one 
sector of the ring defending the fortress, the long 
range of the large mobile howitzer — Austrian, re- 
member, not Prussian in its conception and design 
— rendering it almost invnilnerable to the flat 
trajectory of the guns of the fort. 
(4) The fourth theory of the war upon which 
the enemy relied was the power of modern 
machinery, notably that of petrol traffic using 
good roads. It seemed to the enemy obvious that 
your modern advance, holding the enemy unit for 
unit, would, with a superiority of numbers to 
spare, always be able to come round in flank with 
a good road system and with ample provision of 
petrol vehicles v;ith which to move troops. 
(5) The fifth theoiy of the enemy was of a 
negative type, and concerned both rifle and field- 
gun fire. ,We niust not exaggerate this theory, 
but it is worth study in its true and moderate 
form. In such a form it may be put thus : The 
superiority of a really quick-firing field-piece, such 
as the French seventy-five; the supe]'iority of good 
fire discipline in your infantry and accurately 
aimed shots from the same is an asset of the de- 
fensive rather than offensive type. Other things 
being equal, of course, the more rapid your de- 
livery of shrapnel against the enemy manoeuvring 
with liberty, and the more accurate your rifle fire 
against him the better for you. But these will 
not be the deciding factors if, in reliance upon 
them, one sacrifices that conception of attack 
which is the soul of the Prussian system, and 
Avhich is at bottom the idea of a swarm. Better 
a worse field-gun, with slower rate of firing and 
a less accurate service; better infantry imperfect 
in their training as riflemen, but withal men 
trained to stand very heavy losses in close forma- 
tion, than tb.e very best field artillery in the world 
and the most perfect fire discipline in the hands 
of men who are compelled to dei)loy thinly and 
who fear the heavy losses of massed attack. 
(5) Get your men to stand very heavy tem- 
porary losses while they attack in swarms, and 
those losses will be met amply, for they will be 
a good investment. Because, though the trial will 
be very severe while it lasts, it will be brief, and, 
such a form of attack will be decisive. 
(7) Finally, even against troops in the open 
and for general purposes of war, as, for instance, 
against trenches, let alone against more or less 
permanent work and the more elaborate field for- 
tifications, see that you have an ample supply of 
high explosive shell. It will do more against 
troops in the open than the French theorists have 
allowed, and it is a sort of reserve power for all 
sorts of unexpected conditions that may arise. 
(8) On the defensive a well-handled and large 
supply of machine guns will be your best stand- 
by. Those were the main theories upon which the 
enemy relied as he went into action with, I repeat, 
the moral certitude of immediate and decisive 
victory. 
As we shall see, he was right in some of these 
theories, wrong in others, and those in which he 
was wrong were precisely those vvhich caused 
his failure, but those in which he was right 
brought grave embarrassment to the Allies, 
strengthened his own power of resistance, and pro- 
longed the war in the fashion we all know. Where 
he was right and where wrong we will next dis- 
cuss. After that we will proceed to the new and 
unexpected developments of the campaign after 
the enemy had failed in his first stroke, notably, 
to the development of trench warfare or siege 
work, and to the corresponding novel necessity of 
heavy artillery supply, three, five, ten times as 
great within a given time as any previous student 
of war had allowed for. 
H. BELLOC. 
(To be continued.) 
MR. BELLOC'S LECTURES ON THE WAR. 
Mr. HiUire Belloc will give a series of three lectures on the War 
at Queen's Hall on Tuesday, June 22 ; Tuesday, July 13 ; and Tuesday, 
July 27. Scats may now be booked at reduced prices for the series. 
ilr. Belloc wiU lecture at the Town Hall, Hove, at 8 o'clock on 
Monday, June 21. 
At 3.30, the Winter Gardens, EourneniouJh, Jlonday, June 28. 
At 8 o'clock, the Speech Hall, Wycombe Abbey, High Wycombej 
on Wednesday, July 7. 
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