A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator,' 13 August 1870—Ger-
many stands at the head of the world. The "policy of magnificent audacity" which for the past four weeks we have predicted to unwilling ears has been pursued, and has so far been utterly successful. The Germans have been but eight days in France, and already a third of her Army has been scattered; her Generals have abandoned Alsace and the passes of the Vosges; her Emperor is shut up in Metz, with the German cavalry in sight of the fortificat- ions, awaiting attack from an army double the number of his own; her capital in gloomy wrath is waiting the signal to overthrow the dynasty, and "Vive l'Empereur!" has ceased to appear at the bottom of official decrees... France will survive all this; but nothing but victory in the field, victory immediate, complete, and dramatic, can now save the Empire. For eighteen years Napolean has made a mono- poly of statesmanship, has been the single politician in France at once powerful and in- dependent,—has preferred servants to states- men and parasites to advisers, and now, in the supreme hour of his life, he has been as feebly served in his capital as on the frontier.
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