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CONSTITUTION OF INVADING FORCE
71
Therefore, for the invasion of England on what Lord Roberts considers a scale commensurate to the difficulty of the enterprise—i.e. 150,000 soldiers—Germany must mobilise and send out of the country six Army Corps—a risky step to take, seeing that to the east of her lies Russia, with twenty-three Army Corps, and to the west, France, with twenty, and that in neither of these neighbours has she complete confidence. However, as we have already granted so much to our alarmists, we will concede that, in this particular also, Germany will allow hatred of England to out-weigh respect for her own safety, and continue our investigations.
Six Army Corps,[1] as we now see, mean
- ↑ Lord Roberts sees no reason why the invading army should not consist of nine Army Corps: " Considering, my Lords [so he said], that in all the large Continental ports steamers each capable of carrying 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers for a short voyage can always be made available, 70,000 multiplied by two, or even by three, would require quite a small number of vessels for their transport."—Speech in the House of Lords, February 20, 1912.
