THE NEXT EUROPEAN WAR.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4484, 19 May 1883, Page 3

THE NEXT EUROPEAN WAR.

An article on •• Strategy" in the current number of the Deutsche Bundschau by Baron Yon der Goltz, contains some interesting speculations on the next Euro pean war. The forces engaged in sach a war would, he says, be far greater even than those which were brought into tb? field in 1870. A single army of five corps occupies eight English miles on the battle field. But the entire force of a great European State now consists of four or fire such armies; and the disasters consequent on the collision of two or more such States would naturally be in proportion to their strength— especially as, thanks to the development of the feeling of nationality, wars will in the future be fought not from policy but from national hostility. Armies will assume the.-character of great popular migrations, and will be numbered not by hundreds of thousands but by millions of armed men. This will diminish their mobility. Germany will not again find an open country, with excellent road", and, bowerer excellent her commanders may be, she will not have th<- chance again of advancing into an enemy's country with such ' rapidity and success. The characteristics of the wars of the future will be a slow advance, a constant bringing up of reserves and defeat causpd only by complete exhaustion ; flank attacks will be made by armies instead of, as in 1870, by brigades or dm. iionn, and the district used as a battlefield will be entirely devastated. The feelings of nationality will also make it more difficult to end a war than formerly. Austria would not venture to take back Lombardy and Venice, even if hervictori ous armies should penetrate to Naples, and Germany would not hare been able in 1874 to annex Burgundy and Cham* panne, although they were at her mercy. —St Jameß* Gazette. . :