THE NEXT WAR IN EUROPE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 443, 15 November 1875, Page 4

THE NEXT WAR IN EUROPE.

(From the Pall Mall Gazette.) The criticisms on there-organisation of the French army which appeared in a recent number of Blackwood's Magazine have been virtually left unanswered. Errors of detail have been corrected here and there, aud much indignation has been expressed at the presumption of an anonymous foreigner in censuriDg the French War Office. But none of the important statements have been disproved or ever shaken. So long as the care of ihe army is left in the hands to which it is at present committed, the resurrection of France as a gieat military Power must be considered as. indefinitely postponed. " France," says Colonel Chesney in his recent article on the Military Future of Germany, "has not under arms three-fourths of the peace establishment of her warlike neighbor. It is only within the last month that her War Office has taken the first step towards training even the first instalment of the future reserve that is to fill it up to a field army. . . . Her territorial army exists solely on paper. Her armament is incomplete. Her supply of stores is utterly inadequate to the exigencies of a great campaign. In short, if forced into the struggle now, she would undoubtedly enter it under far less favorable conditions than those of 1870."

All these tacts being known at Berlin, how are we to account for the alarm at the military preparations of France which was professedly felt there in the spring ? Colonel Chesney suggests a very natural explanation. It was not, as some writers in this country wished to make out, a purely military panic. On the contrary, no one knew so well as the military authorities how little immediate military reason there was for it. Yet at the same time the .alarm was perfectly genuine, and in a sense pefectly well founded. But it was an alarm shared to the full by German statesmen, and though the action prompted by it threatened to have France for its object the alarm itself was not caused by France. " France the possible ally of Germany's new antagonist, not France the present enemy, was the key to that skilful mixture of hectoring with pretended fear which deceived not only other nations but the sober-minded Germans themselves." The "new antagonist" of eourse is Russia, and notwithstanding the apparently close alliance which for the present unites the two Empires, " the great motive powers which make for war are busily astir" in both. German officers " avow it to be their next duty to the Fatherland to chastise the Muscovite pride/' The better class of Bussians never cease to declare their conviction " that the new Empire will sooner or later fasten a quarrel on the old." Bussia, deprived by steam auu telegraph of the defensive strength which she formerly derived from the vastness oi her territory, " would be an almost certain prey to German attack ;" and, as a mattei of course, Russia does not mean 1o remain ii. this defenceless state. When her new mili tary law has come into full operation, th field army will consist of two millions o! effective trained soldiers. The home artni will add another million ; and behind hot! these forces will be an additional reserve o at least two millions more. Five millions o men under arms make a total which ma.

well take away a reader's breath ; but Col. Ghesnej is decidedly of opinion that tremendous as these figures seem, and formidable as is the determination on the part of the Russian nation which they indicate, the reconstructed Russian army would still, if marched to invade her neighbor, march to defeat as decisive as overtook Benedek or Bozaine." More than this, the military authorities of Germany are per fectly aware of their superiority, and are a* confident of being able to dictate peace at Moscow as they were of dictating it at Paris. It is not a war with Hussia alone that Germany fears ; it is a war in which she would have to fight Hussia and France together, and so be taken on both flanks at once. This is the contingency against which all her military preparations are directed. As against either adversary by itself these preparations would be " worthy of the most shortsighted instead of the profoundest of administrations." For while the western frontier is being strengthened by an enormous chain of fortresses, the eastern frontier is left entirely open. The defences which are thought essential on the side of France, which has not even begun to regain her strength, are dispensed with on the side of Russia, which is the real exciting cause of German uneasiness. But on the assumption that Germany is to be attacked on both sides at once and that one enemy is to be crushed at once by active operations while the other is held in check by fortresses and the new Landsturm, this apparently inconsistent policy becomes perfectly intelligible. The fortresses along the Rhine and the Moselle are meant not to make the entry of a German army into France more easy, but to make the entry of a French army into Germany more difficult. "The true use of this mighty bariier can evidently only be found if Germany be unexpectedly called for the time to act strictly on the defensive against a IFrench invasion. But such an invasion could only be hopefully made, such a defensive attitude only be adopted, if the striking power of Germany be for the time summoned away to meet a great danger elsewhere ;" and this danger elsewhere is a possible attack from the East by Russia, and on the Rhine by France. Against Russia alone Germany feels secure; and as France is the only Power which is likely to court alliances for alliance sake, it is the possible co-operation of France that makes Russia really formidable. Even against these two Powers in combination Colonel Chesney thinks that Germany would probably be victorious. But to strategists accustomed to forecast every conceivable contingency, and to be ahead of their contemporaries by half a generation, a mere probability is not enough. It was a natural instinct that led the German Government to reflect that "it would be more conven'ent, much cheaper, and would incur far less material lisk, to settle conclusively with France now, and fo thoroughly reduce her power that Russia could no longer count on her for serious aid." Nor would it be safe to assume that this natural instinct has ceased to influence the policy of Germany because it was not followed out last May. The abandonment of the German designs against France is not completely explained by the statement that the Czar interposed to forbid war. The power of the Czar to give effect to his words exists at present only in intention, while France will long hs too weak to count as an appreciable addition to the strength of Russia. Colonel Chesney, it will be remembered, feels confident that Germany would beat Russia standing alone, even when the Russian military system has been got into working order; and he thinks it more th%n probable that she would beat Russia in alliance with France, even when the military systems of both countries have been got into working order. If this somewhat hizardous opinion is to be accepted, how much greater was the chance that Germany would beat Russia and France combined when, as was the case last spring, the armies of both Powers were chiefly formidable on paper? If it would have cost Germany nothing to settle with Fiance, it would not have cost her very much to settle with Russia at the same time, or, rather, it would have mattered little how much it cost her when we consider that the work once done would have been done for half a century, and that Germany, victoiious a second time over France and a first time over Russia, would have been the undisputed mistress of Europe. Why was the occasion allowed to slip by unused ? Some allowance must perhaps be made for the kind of terror which overtakes even the greatest favourites of fortune when they are left to cry double or quits after such victories as those of 1870. Great statesmen are never destitute of imagination and even of a certain superstition ; and imagination and superstition readily conjure up the unforeseen chances which may frustrate the best laid plans, and the changing luck which may cloud the most certain prospects. Something, again, may be set down to the personal influence which still plays a large part in the politics of Continental Europe. Relationship and family affection might have made it a hard matter for the Emperor to resist the Czar. These, however, are but speculations. It is more important to bear in mind that what has been taken for the abandonment of a purpose may be only its postponement. According to Colonel Chesney, the new military systems, whether of France or Russia, will need years for their full development ; and during this interval the opportunity which Germany seemed bent upon making last spring may present itself under conditions equally favorable from a military point of view and more favorable from a diplomatic point of view. The question which really concerns Europe is not why Germany did not fight France a few months back, but whether she is likely to delay doing so until France and Russia have grown too strong to be attacked except by an enormous effort and at an enormous risk.