I do not presume to speak regarding coast defenses maintained for the purposes of repelling attacks or invasions from the sea.

I am speaking with regard to land defenses which are assailable by land forces.

I believe in the future great wars--if indeed there are to be any more great wars following after this one--that the nations involved, instead of buttoning their frontiers down with great fortresses and ringing their principal cities about with circles of protecting works, will put their trust more and more in transportable cannon of a caliber and a projecting force greater than any yet built or planned.

I make this assertion after viewing the visible results of the operations of the German 42-centimeter guns in Belgium and France, notably at Liege in the former country and at Maubeuge in the latter.
Except for purposes of frightening non-combatants the Zeppelins apparently have proved of most dubious value; nor, barring its value as a scout--a field in which it is of marvelous efficiency--does the aeroplane appear to have been of much consequence in inflicting loss upon the enemy.

Of the comparatively new devices for waging war, the submarine and the great gun alone seem to have justified in any great degree the hopes of their sponsors.
Since I came back out of the war zone I have met persons who questioned the existence of a 42-centimeter gun, they holding it to be a nightmare created out of the German imagination with intent to break the confidence of the enemies of Germany.