23 JULY 1870, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE th1 Y.

THE WAR.

GERMANY has rushed together with a clang. That is the first, and for France the worst, result of the decla- ration of war. The Emperor Napoleon, with that strange incapacity to comprehend popular feeling which he has betrayed throughout his career, which made him fancy that England would alter her laws to protect his throne from plots, that the North would give up her struggle with the South, that Mexicans would rise for an Austrian Archduke, that Tuscany would accept a Bonaparte for a sovereign. that Italy would give up Rome, that the ignorant " gentlemen " of Austria would beat the "mere professors" of Berlin, had evidently imagined that the " conquered " States of Germany would welcome an invasion that might relieve them of their chains. Exiles embittered by undeserved misfortunes told him so ; envoys accustomed to live among the limited class which, partly from tradition, partly from cosmopolitan train- ing, hates the stern re'ginze of the Hohenzollerns, repeated the same tale ; the Mtramontanes, savage at the rise of a Pro- testant power, endorsed the envoys' despatches ; and finally, the secret agents, mixing only with men who are to Germans what Fenians are to Englishmen, struck the impression home. The war must be directed against Prussia alone, and then Hanover would rise ; Saxony would rebel ; Schleswig-Holstein would demand its Prince ; Wurtemburg would declare war on Prussia; Bavaria would accept Austrian advice; Germany would melt down like a waterspout under the concussion of the cannon. War was declared, war intended to crush down the German oppressor, and all Germany at the oppressor's sum- mons rushed together as if the Hohenzollern already wore the Imperial crown. Particularist and Ultramontane, noble and burgher, the classes which love the past and the traders who dread military conscription, all laid aside their grievances to defend the united Fatherland. Bavaria declared war on France. Wurtemburg declared war on France. Saxony demanded "energetic action" against the French, and formally claimed her place in the vanguard of the battle. Hanover proclaimed in great meetings her devotion to the Federation. Bremen rose in insurrection against a merchant who criticized Prussian "arrogance." Hamburg sent volunteers, and doubled the money asked. The Universities on the Rhine were deserted, all students hastening to the ranks. The Opposition, so jealous of the purse, so hostile to the new military system, voted £25,000,000 to bring that system to perfection. The wildest fanatics of liberty, with Karl Blind at their head, called on the Soldier-King to defend Germany with the sword. The very emigrants flying from conscription, and safely arrived in New York, returned to bear in the "slavery" they hated their share in the common duty of defending Germany from subjugation. From Posen to Italy, from Silesia to Cologne, the German people rose in arms. As these words reach our readers, the mobilisation will be complete, and the great Teutonic people, double the number of those who won the terrible American war, stubborn as the Yankees and as educated, organized like Frenchmen, full of knowledge and burning with zeal, with a million of trained soldiers as their advance-guard, are pouring down on France, to settle once for all whether Teuton or Latin is to be leader of the world. Let our readers think but for five minutes of the power which that race can exert, of its numbers and its history, of its weapons and its education, of its Carnot Von Moltke, and its geographical position, and judge whether Napoleon will in six weeks be at Berlin. That the Emperor of the French wields a terrible weapon is true, for he leads France ; and France is as great as Germany, and as homogeneous, as full of soldiers, as ardent, as well prepared, and far more likely to develop leaders of the true destructive- warrior type. No race has ever existed in Europe, not even the Roman, which could pretend to meet the Gaul in battle without a doubt of the result ; nor is there one, except the English, which has not time and again been forced to sue to France for peace. There may be, as some observers think, disquiet among the peasantry ; but Frenchmen, once at war, know only the glory of France ; and the Army, which is France, is as enthusiastic as if it were, as it half believes itself to be, a Providence to itself. But even France, with all her genius for war, her courage, and her patriotism, even the Army which won Magenta, may be overtaxed ; and unless we misread all modern history, this march to Berlin will overtax her. It is not an army, but an armed nation, which is in the road. Besides, why do we assume that the march must be towards Berlin, and the Germans the defendants? Why should it not be towards Paris, the French being the defendants? It is a curious proof of the ascendancy which French genius and daring exercise over all minds that the supposition should seem monstrous ; but Prussia is as close to France as France to. Prussia, she has easier modes of ingress, not having to cross the Rhine, and she is led by men whose first if not greatest characteristic is military audacity, who crossed the Carpathians to seek an army which all Europe expected would destroy them, and who have announced publicly a fixed belief that war, to be short, should be fought upon the hostile soil. That an invasion would raise to its height the ardour of France is true, that it would summon all France into the field cannot be doubted ; but ardour, whatever its height can but make men disregard death, which Frenchmen do even when not excited, and the French Army, under its present organization, is- France in the field. That such a march should succeed may, nay does, appear incredible ; but it may succeed as well as a halt,—may produce, that is, a drawn battle,. and at the cost of far less suffering to States whick it will be the policy of Prussia to exempt as far as may be from the horrors of war. Wurtemburg will be most German while Germans are marching on France. It is argued that Prussia is not so prepared as France, and that seems true ;- but the immense magnitude of the contest, involving as it does- more men than Napoleon gathered from half Europe upon the- Niemen, has compelled the Emperor to delay his spring until Prussia is just so far prepared that advance might make the remaining preparations easier. During the Austrian war the second line was formed behind the invading army. By to- morrow Prussia should be as ready as she was in 1866, an though the French, with their splendid energy and speed, may- anticipate her de'bouche, and fight the first grand battle on Prussian soil, this, we feel sure, will be the leading idea of the campaign. If that battle, be it fought on the hither or thither side of Saarbriick, be won by Prussia, she will flow into France ; if by France, Prussia will fall back, fighting step by step, until her chance opens to her once more. To predict the result of such an engagement would be folly, but the great French soldiers who have studied Germany- know well how nearly equal the resources and the courage and the enthusiasm of the two armies are, and they at least do not, as most of our contemporaries do, forget Leipsic to remember only Jena, or conceal from themselves that France, with all her brilliant staff, has not yet discovered the equal of the great Italian who at Jena, at the head of her troops, struck Prussia down. That sense of equality, existing on both sides, manifested in- the Emperor's long preparations as in King William's- address to his Parliament, in the French exultation in the nzitrailleuse as in the Prussian pledges to fight to the last, will of itself make the first great battle unspeakably important, for it will tend to make the Generals on both sides dread a numerical inferiority, not only for the effect it may exercise on their own strategy, but the effect it is certain to produce on the imaginations of their men. Soldiers must be very contemptuous of their foes to be careless about being outnumbered, and at heart neither Prussian nor Frenchman is contemptuous of the other. Add that in Germany society is almost disorganized by the mobilisation of the Army, and that in France speedy victory is politically almost as im- portant as victory itself, and every consideration will be seen to point to a battle on a prodigious scale. That it should be a decisive one is, we imagine, beyond either hope or fear. The countries engaged are too powerful, the army reserves too strong, the interests at stake too great for a battle to secure a peace ; but, nevertheless, the result of that battls must be so great that all previous study of the situation may well be postponed. All alliances will depend on its result, and so, it may be, will the very meaning of the war. Which- ever wins, the other will feel that it fights almost for inde- pendence, and will offer to every available ally terms now pronounced absurd. The map of Europe, if not its fate, will depend upon that engagement.