RIVAL POWERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9185, 7 September 1908, Page 5

RIVAL POWERS.

FRANCE AND GERMANY. TALK OF I*7o. GERMANY WORKING OUT A j PROBLEM. MANOEUVRES ON A LARGE SCALE. Received September 6, 4.30 p.m. PARIS, Spetember 5. France resents Germany concentrating 80,000 troops in connection with manoeuvres at Alsace-Lorraine, and declines to send the customary military mission. It is understood that the German authorities are working out the problems of what would have happened had the battle of Spicheren been a French victory. It is considered conceivable that Germany might be obliged to act on the defensive in Alsace-Lorraine in the event of war, and it is a fundamental principle of defensive tactics that troops should be familiar with the country they are called upon to defend." The French, on their side, have summoned 125,000 troops for manoeuvres in the region round Boise, lying between Lemans, Never*, Orleans, and Chateauroux, and are working out a scheme, which is somewhat of an analogy to the situation of French and German armies in November, 1870. The course of events in the short but terrible Franco-Ger-man conflict of 1870-71 astonished Europe by its unexpected character, revealing at once thedolidity of the Prussian strength and the hollowness of imperial power in France. The war called for superiority in numbers and mobility at the very outset, besides.good generalship, and these were soon found to be on the side of the Germans, whose perfect orangisation enabled every detail of mobilisation to be carried out on the dates pre arranged. The French troops numbered 518,000 men with 1,-584 guns, and they were' divided into three armies. On August 6th, 1870, was fought the battle of Spicheren, between 67,000 of the first German army and 32,000 of Frossard's corps, and it ended in the orderly retreat of the latter.