THE NEW FRENCH ARMY.
THE valuable paper in Blackwood on the French Army of 1877, which is evidently written by a very competent and careful military critic, and probably by one of the ablest military critics amongst us, is certainly timely, in Corning out as it does at a moment Aen it is, at least, not improbable that Germany may miss the curb which Prince Bismarck., with all his faults, has always made the military chiefs in Germany conscious that he held over them. The critic in Blackwood believes, and as far as we can judge proves, that since the last military panic two years ago, when Germany was believed to be so near attempting what Prince Bismarck ridiculed as a precautionary assassination of a suspected assassin, France has made so much progress, though very slow and painful progress, that it would be a matter of the utmost peril for Germany to attempt a new invasion. If this really be so,—and if the critic in Blackwood is as careful as he seems to be, it unquestionably is so,—we might dismiss the chief anxiety which Prince Bismarck's long furlough,—if he be really gone for a year or more,—would be calculated to excite. German militarism is a permanent danger, in its own way ; but German militarism has now been so long accustomed to direct its thoughts France- wards, that it will take some little time to divert them into a new channel ; and if France be substantially safe against attack,—that is, so far safe that it would be as wild a risk, from a military point of view, to attack her, as in any case it must have been from any larger and more political point of view,—we may reasonably hope that the military restless- ness of Germany has found a sedative for the present. Now this is just what the writer in Blackwood believes to have happened. He thinks, indeed, that France is not only not strong enough for any attack on Germany, but that there is no pros- pect within any limited time of her becoming so. He holds that France could within three weeks mobilise and concentrate an army of 990,000 men, with 310,000 more remaining dis- posable at the depots to fill up gaps as they arose, and this without calling up the "territorial army and its reserves." Of these 1,300,000 troops, 750,000 would, according to the writer, be really disciplined soldiers ; 300,000 more would have had six months' drilling, and 250,000 more would be quite undisciplined. The writer holds that these armies would be ample, and could be mobilised in ample time, for the purpose of defending France against invasion, though they would not be adequate, and could not be mobilised in time for an attack on Germany, who mobilises quicker than France. What further renders any invasion of Germany by France quite impossible is, according to this writer, the fact that the new German strong- holds between France and the Rhine, heavily garrisoned as of course they would be, could not be invested without, at least, an army of 400,000 men for that service alone, while an attempt to penetrate into Germany would be madness without a highly-disciplined army of 800,000 men more. Add to this, that the new fortresses command all the railways available for moving troops across the German frontier, and that the supplies for these 800,000 men would have to be carried daily to increasing distances in carts, and the writer thinks, not apparently without justice, that he has completely shown how desperate a task it would be, in the present state of the German Army and fortresses, to use the new French Army for an attack on Germany. All the frightful odds, however, against which the French would have to fight in case of an invasion of Germany, the Germans would have to face in case of an invasion of France, with such an army and such fortresses as the French now have for their own defence. Hence the critic in Black- wood says emphatically that the military party in Ger- many have lost any opportunity such as they had two years ago, for breaking up France before France could oppose anything like equal resistance. The work of military reorganisation, though it has been clumsily and slowly done, and though many grave mistakes have been made, which it has been necessary to repair at the cost of great trouble and expense, has so far been achieved, that any attempt to invade France, even by such a Power as Germany, would now be one of the most serious and conspicuous peril. Though France is helpless for a spring on Germany, Germany is now almost as unprepared for a successful spring upon France.
This is very important news for the rest of Europe, and almost as good news as we could have, if it did not imply that the French provinces wrested from France in 1870 have very little prospect of 'returning to the country to which their people's hearts gravitate so strongly. Nevertheless, what Europe needs is some security that the huge military powers of modern times shall not be available for purposes of offence. And this is what the present relations of the military powers of France and Germany seem nearly to secure. For we must remember it does not in the least follow that because France is unable to invade Germany without something like certainty of crushing defeat, and Germany is unable to invade France without frightful risk, there- fore neither country can do much to protect smaller and less powerful States from the other's ambition. Though a French army cannot cross the Rhine, a French army could enter Belgium to secure it against attack ; or a French army could act with any other for the defence of Holland, and still hold Germany in check on France's eastern frontier. And the same, of course, is still more true of Germany. Germany will not be able to execute again such a march on Paris as startled all the world in 1870. But though Germany could not risk so great an enterprise in face of the new French organisation, it could certainly most effectually check any attack of France on Belgian neutrality, and that without exposing the German frontier to French invasion. Again, if the independ ence of either Italy or Switzerland were in danger from either Power, the other could quite certainly give the most effective aid, without either invading its enemy's country or leaving its own frontiers undefended. By way of Belfort, France would always have access to Switzerland, on the invitation of Switzer- land, just as by way of Strasburg, Germany would have the same. And again, by way of Nice, France would always have access to Italy ; while Germany, at least with Austria's con- sent,—and German Austria would not be inclined to allow France to domineer in a country from which she has so re- cently been herself expelled,—could easily march troops through the Tyrol to aid Italy against France. Thus the position of mutual inaccessibility as enemies, in which, under present cir- cumstances, Germany and France are said to stand to each other, by no means implies that they would not have to account with each other if either Power flagrantly violated the rights of some neutral country, whose independence was of great importance to European peace. On the whole, then, we doubt whether Europe is likely to arrive at a more perfect condition of stable equilibrium than the new organisation of the French Army would have secured for her, if the Turkish Question were not for ever menacing us with horrors, fears, and jealousies in the East. With France and Germany each powerful enough to render attack on the other probably dis- astrous, and an attack on any smaller Power defended by the other, a matter of great danger and risk, there would be little to fear for Western Europe,—which means that the burden of a great terror is really removed from France, and from all who know that the independence of France is essential to European civilisation and prosperity.
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