At that moment her superior efficiency, the consequence of this inborn sense of duty--surely one of the highest qualities of humanity--was so great that it is more than probable that less than six weeks would have sufficed to bring the French to their knees.

Indeed, after the first fortnight it would have been possible to begin transferring troops from the Rhine to the Niemen; and the same case may arise again.

But if France and Russia had been allowed even ten days' warning the German plan would have been completely defeated.
France alone might then have claimed all the efforts that Germany could have put forth to defeat her.
Yet there are politicians in England so grossly ignorant of the German reading of the Napoleonic lessons that they expect that Nation to sacrifice the enormous advantage they have prepared by a whole century of self-sacrifice and practical patriotism by an appeal to a Court of Arbitration, and the further delays which must arise by going through the medieaeval formalities of recalling Ambassadors and exchanging ultimatums.
Most of our present-day politicians have made their money in business--a "form of human competition greatly resembling War," to paraphrase Clausewitz.

Did they, when in the throes of such competition, send formal notice to their rivals of their plans to get the better of them in commerce?
Did Mr.Carnegie, the arch-priest of Peace at any price, when he built up the Steel Trust, notify his competitors when and how he proposed to strike the blows which successively made him master of millions?
Surely the Directors of a Great Nation may consider the interests of their shareholders--i.e., the people they govern--as sufficiently serious not to be endangered by the deliberate sacrifice of the preponderant position of readiness which generations of self-devotion, patriotism and wise forethought have won for them?
As regards the strictly military side of this work, though the recent researches of the French General Staff into the records and documents of the Napoleonic period have shown conclusively that Clausewitz had never grasped the essential point of the Great Emperor's strategic method, yet it is admitted that he has completely fathomed the spirit which gave life to the form; and notwithstandingthe variations in application which have resulted from the progress of invention in every field of national activity (not in the technical improvements in armament alone), this spirit still remains the essential factor in the whole matter.

Indeed, if anything, modern appliances have intensified its importance, for though, with equal armaments on both sides, the form of battles must always remain the same, the facility and certainty of combination which better methods of communicating orders and intelligence have conferred upon the Commanders has rendered the control of great masses immeasurably more certain than it was in the past.
Men kill each other at greater distances, it is true--but killing is a constant factor in all battles.