ance it would create in all public plans too high. 
4. The material for such an attempt is known 
to be prepare*! and has been prepared for many 
months, nor is it of any very complicated kinil, 
seeing that the attempt, if made, would probably 
be made by an insufficient numljer of men. 
Now, it is self-evident that no invasion could 
be of the least value, even as a raid, unless the feea 
were clear l)ehind it for some considerable space 
of time. A landing force could bring with it 
munitions for all the earlier part of the fighting 
and could establish itself if it had command of 
the sea, whether by a trick or by a victory, for 
even three days. But unless that command were 
more or less permanent, or at any rate could extend 
over a calculable period of weeks rather than days, 
the raiders would be doomed. They could tie an 
enormous amount of damage, and they coulil. j)er- 
haps, throw into confusion most of the national 
plans; but the effect would be slight, because it 
would be ephemeral, and the ultimate destruction 
of the force landed would be, in the field of mere 
moral effect, an asset of those against whom it had 
been directed and a permanent loss to the enemy. 
But if the sea were kept open for a time sufficient 
to permit even a mere raid to effect its purpose and 
to retire, then the advantage would be all in the 
enemy's favour. 
It is to the enemy's advantage that the blow, 
if struck, should be struck late. He can hardly 
strike it until there is something of a lull in his 
Continental operations — until he has organised a 
general defensive, for the moment at least. And 
the later he strikes the better, because he is 
staking his fleet. If he is completely defeated on 
land in the long run his fleet is certainly forfeit; 
but until he is completely defeated his fleet retains 
its full value. It is, for instance, at the present 
moment inconceivable even to his higher oommand 
that his defeat shall be so complete as to involve 
the surrender of his ships. 
All this set of considerations tends to post- 
l)one and further to postpone any such attempt as 
(hat which we are considering. 
On the other hand, the building power of 
Great Britain as against that of the German 
Empire is such that with every passing month the 
disproportion between the two fleets increases. 
The enemy must be balanced in this scheme of 
invasion, l>etween the picture of a desperate stroke 
which would have its maximum eft'ect quite late in 
tlie war and a picture of a defeat which then 
occurring would be more thorough than what he 
might have suffered earlier in the campaign. 
On the one hand, the enemy would at the very 
end of a lost campaign rather risk his fleet in a 
gamblers throw than see it disappear by the dull 
method of a shameful treaty. On the other hand, 
its proportionate power for offence, when we con- 
trast the building potential of the two nations, 
lessens regularly as the campaign draws on. 
The argument is strongly in favour of delay 
rather than an immediate trial. But that 
.such an experiment, with the odds admittedly 
enormous against its success, may be risked as a 
last desperate move does actually present itself to 
the German cK)mmanders is probable. 
A GENERAL SURVEY. 
{Cont 
I HAVE in last week's issue tabulated the 
enemy's view of the struggle he deliberately 
provoked under eight heads : 
I next propose to show how his right 
guesses and wrong led up to the present situation. 
1. The most important guess of all, the guess 
which was at the bottom of the enemy's grand 
strategy as a whole, was wildly wrong. ' It was as 
wrong as the idea the French Revolution had about 
the state of England and of English political 
opinion in the year 1793 : and it was the enemy's 
utter miscalculation in this regard which, as much 
as anything else, defeated his object and forbade 
his final victory in the Avar he had provoked. 
So far from the French General Staff being 
in peril of political confusion through the stroke 
which would undoubtedly menace Paris, the enemy 
were dealing, in the case of that Staff, with ii 
body of men, who, more than any other in Europe, 
were determined to be utterly rid of the Parlia- 
mentarians the moment war began, and to sacrifice 
every civilian consideration whatsoever to purely 
military ends. 
Paris did not aet as a lure. The F?-ench Plan 
was perfectly ready to sacrifice Paris, if by that 
sacrifice the campaign as a whole could be won. 
All three contingencies, therefore, which the Ger- 
mans reg;\j-ded as exhaustive, and as covering the 
whole field of possibilities, were in reality elimi- 
nated before war began. 
(a) The French Arn)y had no intention of 
directing its plan to the mere defence of Paris. 
(b) It thoroughly well foresaw the danger of 
inned.) 
dividing its inferior forces, and had no intention 
under any stress of falling iiito that trap. 
(c) The nation was so organised, it was so 
military in temper that, once hostilities had begun, 
no politicians, even if any had had the desire to 
counsel a bad military operation, would have been 
listened to. 
The major consequences of this error in the 
enemy's judgment moulded the whole war. It led 
the enemy to drive the mass of his men straight on 
Paris. It compelled him, when too near the forti- 
fications of that fortress, to swerve. He was 
caught in the act of swerving. The disaster he 
thereby suffered broke down all his provision of 
lapid success in the West, which was essential to 
his general victory. 
2. In choosing the Belgian Plain as the line 
of an advance on Paris, the enemy was, in the 
military sense, justified. This line would give 
him ample railway communications and the most 
direct avenue of approach to the French Capital. 
In his guess as to the nature of Belgium's resist- 
ance the enemy was both right and wrong; right 
in the calculation which depended upon material 
and numerical factors, wrong, as he has always 
l)een, in what depended upon psychology. The 
fortresses could not resist him, the Belgian Army 
could but slightly and imperfectly detain him in 
the Field. But on the other hand he met with so 
A igorous a National resistance, he was so far from 
attaining an advance secure under a mere protest 
(as at Luxembourg) that all his military action 
from the outbreak of the war to the present day 
