13 SEPTEMBER 1884, Page 8

THE GERMAN PLAN OF INVASION. B REECH-LOADING rifles, Krupp guns, and

railways wrought greater changes in the art of warfare than were wrought even by the invention of gunpowder. The revolution has been completed, so far as the Continent of Europe is concerned, by the general adoption of universal military service, and that vast system of fortifications on the French frontier, of which we gave a description in a late num- ber of the Spectator. These fortifications have their counter- part in neighbouring countries. Germany is strongly pro- tected on the side of Russia and Austria ; and on the side of Alsace-Lorraine alone she has spent, since the Peace of Frank- fort, upwards of six millions sterling in repairing old and building new defensive works. It is not likely that the altered conditions under which future contests must be waged have escaped the chiefs of the German Army, who, so far from allowing themselves to be satiated with victory, or reposing on their laurels, criticise their own shortcomings even more severely than those of their adversaries, and whose battles are won in the cabinet before they are fought in the field. In order to be prepared for every emergency, they ex- aggerate the progress achieved by their possible enemies ; and the German General Staff have studied with characteristic thoroughness the problem presented by the new system of defence—a triple ring of fortresses backed by the armed nation—which France in these days has adopted. In the last war the French horse, as is well known, did not play a par- ticularly brilliant part ; yet it is now almost an axiom at Berlin that if another campaign should unhappily come to pass, the cavalry of the Republic will contend on almost equal terms with the Ma'am of the Fatherland ; that its troops of the Line will be as well trained, its officers as efficient, its artillery as powerful, and its effectives as numerous as those of Germany. In all this there is doubtless a tench of exag- geration, but as to the general conclusion there can be little question,—that the opening of the war will be far slower than that of 1870, and that the series of crushing victories which in two months led the German hosts from the banks of the Rhine to the walls of Paris are not likely to be repeated. On the other hand, the General Staff have no intention of remaining on the defensive ; to do so, they say, would be to accept, not to make war, and wilfully throw away all the advantages which the offensive gives to the side by which it is adopted. The views of the highest military authorities on the subject have been frankly set forth by Baron von der Goltz, himself a member of the General Staff, in a book entitled "The Armed Nation." It is a significant proof of the spirit which now pervades the French Army that this book has been translated by a Professor of the Military School of St. Cyr.

The employment of the enormous masses of men which obligatory service now places at the disposal of the great Continental Powers will render future wars not more sanguinary, but more quickly decisive, and also much more complicated than those of former times. The features that most distinguish the new warfare from the old are the enormous extent of the battle-fields, and the different part played by the General-in- Chief. Sixty years ago armies bivouacked at a distance from each other at which they are now in full action. Even in the last war it was found that the General could do little more than marshal his forces, give, as it were, the impulse, and leave the carrying-out of his plans to the intelligence of his subordinates. Much more will this be the case in the time to come, for the commander of the future, instead of having a dozen corps d'ar»ze'e in line of battle, must have at least twenty, and the action may be fought along a front of as many leagues. If the next great war should be waged between the two nations which were parties to the last, it will find the French frontier protected by a granite wall of strong places, bristling with cannon, and here and there a gap, as if to tempt an un- wary enemy to destruction. But no enemies so acute as the Germans would attempt to enter the country without first effecting a breach in the wall. To this end the plan of concentration and the plan of operation will have to be executed simultaneously. The campaign will open with great cavalry fights, each army trying to rid itself of these dangerous witnesses of its movements, and at the same time ■:o ascertain those of its adversaries. The side that succeeds in beating back the enemy's horse will have scored a great advantage. The concentration of their corps d'armee will be rendered easier, the secret of their strategy more effectually guarded. This will be the object of the German commanders ; and, as we may presume, also of the French. The cavalry com- bats will probably be followed by a great battle, offered by the army whose horsemen have been worsted, either in front of its fortifications, or in the intervals between them. This pre-

liminary contest, though it can hardly fail to be murder- ous, is expected to be indecisive ; for if the assailant

be vanquished, he will return to the charge, while if the defenders should prove the weaker, they can withdraw behind their fortifications. Then will begin the tug of war. The iron and granite barrier that shelters the beaten foe will have to be forced at all costs. Regular siege operations will be out of the question. The delay would enable the defenders to rally and direct the bulk of their forces on the threatened point. The assailants must be able to cover their advance by an artillery fire superior at once to that of the forts and of the army by whom they are supported. In the next great war, the decisive battles will be preceded by combats of artillery greater than any the world has yet seen. After breaking the line, the invaders will have to encounter the enemy a second time, if they will accept battle, or invest them in their fortified camps, if they should be so unwise as to take refuge there. Unwise, because an army in an entrenched camp is a lost army, and in this opinion Colonel Hennebert, a French military writer who discusses the subject in his "Europe Under Arms," is fully agreed with Baron von der Goltz. In the event of the defenders being a second time beaten, the problem would be solved ; the rest of the campaign could be conducted under normal conditions, save that the guarding of communications would require greater watchfulness, and absorb many more men, than previous wars were wont to do. The German Staff do not seem much concerned with the idea of leaving behind them a line of strong places. They remember that in the last war the fortified Camp of Langres, with its 17,000 men, did not cause them the least embarrassment. Neither Baron von der Goltz nor Colonel Hennebert is a great admirer of the exaggerated system of defence adopted by French strategists. Strong places are a shelter in time of disaster, and tend, perhaps, to give confidence to Generals, and impart a sense of security to their men ; but these advantages are dearly purchased by the sacrifice of more manly qualities,—dash, boldness, and audacity, —and by turning all their thoughts towards a defensive war- fare, they exercise a pernicious influence over the Head- quarter Staff and the Commander-in-Chief. The great wall of China did not keep out the Tartars, and not all the fortifi- cations in the world can stop an army confident of its superiority, and conducted by a General who knows his busi- ness. But they must be willing to make sacrifices hardly less severe than would be inflicted by a disastrous defeat.

These are the conclusions of a member of the Great Staff of the German Army. They show that the armed nation of which the Empire now consists is prepared for all eventu- alities; but it is easy to read between the lines that Baron von der Goltz, soldier though he be, is by no means anxious for the war whose fortunes he attempts to forecast,—a war, we may add, which is probably more remote than many people seem to think. It is not merely that the men who carry the bayonets control the ballot-boxes, it is that obligatory military service forces every family in the land to give hostages to peace. The highest as well as the lowest must send out their sons to battle. Germany was never so little warlike as on the morrow of the war which brought her so much glory and so many substantial advantages ; and though the French seem eager to fight Asiatic peoples who are unable to defend themselves, they were probably never less disposed to engage in a big war than at the present moment. It is true that the toiling millions who make food for powder, are not always the masters of their own destinies ; but fighting in these days has become so terrible a business, the sacrifices it demands are so enormous, its risks so im- measurable, that the most light-hearted of statesmen will pause long before entering into a contest of which not even the wisest can foresee the issue or count the cost, and which, as likely as not, may involve his country in ruin and himself in disgrace. These are the best securities for the preservation of European peace, and we owe them to that system of obligatory military service which has created the new warfare and the armed nation.