The war plans of one generation cannot be the war plans of another either on land or sea.

That France had 4,500,000 men capable of bearing arms did not mean that she could hold 4,000,000 men in fighting array at any one time.
After five months of war France had only 1,500,000 men at the front, and from the camps and military organizations she expects to have ready a fresh army of another million in the spring.

But she mobilized nearly 4,000,000 men.

Paris industry, trade, and commerce could shut down in a day, but there was no organization that could make in a day or a week the men of France into an army at the front.

Her 600,000 regular troops were, of course, always in position to be thrown on the defensive at the German frontier.