Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart, who displayed both judgment
and character during the continuance of the Dreyfus affair, is publishing his opinion in the ..4urore on the comparative value of the German and French Armies. The numbers at present are nearly equal, though the advantage in this respect is passing to the Germans ; and the weapons may be considered equal also ; but the Colonel evidently thinks the German soldier the superior both in physique and intelligence. Again, he admits an element of weakness in the higher ranka of the French Army. "Little change has been made during the last thirty years in the mode of obtaining the French officer. There is still a great lack of homogeneity, owing to diversity of origin and the political and religious dissensions that agitate the country." On the other hand, the Germans, owing to the caste system on which their officers are selected, have a much smaller reservoir of capacity upon which to draw if in a great war their stock of officers should be heavily depleted. On the whole, therefore, he thinks that• if war breaks out Frenchmen may "await events with serenity." That is reassuring for Frenchmen, just now in a pessimistic mood; but the misfortune of such calculations is that they take no account of leadership, though Colonel Picquart draws comforting auguries from the indefinite capacity possessed by France of throwing up strong men in great emergencies. If it were possible to foresee the rise of a Napoleon, or even a Bernadotte, on one side or the other, it might be possible to predict the issue of a future war; but unhappily genius cannot be produced to order.
Previous page
