which dominate the Woevre and continue into the neighbour- hood of Verdun. This accordingly became an entrenched camp, which had to be raised to the highest pitch of efficiency as a counter to Metz, the "loaded pistol pointed at the heart of France." The line of battle was based on Verdun, and, con- solidated by forts constructed on the Meuse slopes, passed in its natural course through Toul and then through the good defensive positions afforded by the left slope of the valley of the Moselle. Between Epinal and Mirecourt these heights lay fur- ther from the river, and accordingly the French line drew away from Epinal to arrive at a hill called the Cote deVivine. Thus the entrenched camp of Epinal, on the Moselle, lay in the ad- vance of the battle-line, and enabled an offensive flank move- ment against the left of the enemy attack to be made under the protection of its artillery. Behind this first very solid line, which could be held by forces very inferior to those of the enemy, a whole series of positions were available in case of a retreat, in the valleys of the rivers flowing south and north.
The front being rendered secure from direct attack, there re- mained the question of the two flanks, in the event of an invasion by way of either Belgium or Switzerland. Facing the road from Switzerland there was a great concave arc of positions com- manding the plain of the Saone and based on entrenched camps, i.e. Belfort, Epinal, Langres and Dijon. In front of these stood Besancon, in a position to divide and delay the invading stream. Facing the Belgium road, with Verdun, which acted as a sort of left shoulder, as the starting point, was a returning arc marked by the entrenched camps Reims, Laon and La Fere. In advance of these positions Maubeuge played a part corresponding to that of Besancon on the other side.
The enemy must take a certain line to traverse either of the neutral countries, even supposing that he met with no opposi- tion. This would allow time for the French reserves to form, and for the first-line army to concentrate along the Verdun-Toul- pinal line, to prepare positions facing N. on the left flank of an invader from Belgium or facing S. on the right of an invader from Switzerland, and to be ready to attack, in either event, at the favourable moment. Reason and prudence dictated these dispositions, in view of France's isolation, separated as she was from her Russian ally, and of the fact that Germany and Austria had the advantage of " interior lines."
The dimensions of the two flanks^from Verdun to Reims- Laon-La Fere, and from Belfort to Epinal-Langres-Dijon, respectively were in accordance with the resources provided by the French recruiting laws in force for some years after 1872; but they had become insufficient for those given by the law of 1889, which greatly increased the military sacrifices demanded from the nation and added considerably to the war effectives. The result was that the flank facing an attack from Belgium, instead of ending at the Laon-La Fere system, which was becom- ing useless, was prolonged as far as Paris, which, as an immense fortified camp, must, by the mere fact of its presence, play a supremely important part, as was seen in 1914. Compared with this great entrenched camp, Reims itself was quite secondary. As for the other flank, it could be continued indefinitely beyond Dijon, by means of the formidable defensive positions provided by the mountains of the Cote-d'Or, which commanded the plains of the Saone. No new fortifications had been considered necessary. The line of battle opposed to Metz could also, because of the increased military resources, be prolonged N. of Verdun, still keeping the edge of the Meuse slopes up to Stenay and even beyond, so as to constitute a threat to the German right, on condition, however, that this right did not extend into Belgium. In the event of a turning movement by way of Bel- gium, the French left was not to go beyond the Verdun shoulder, and thence would trend away into a defensive, refused flank.
An alternative policy, that of entering Belgium and by rein- forcement enabling the Belgians to hold the line of the Meuse, was the subject of a good deal of consideration in French military circles before the war. It involved, however, an extremely com- plex problem. The attitude of Belgium on the question of admit- ting French and British forces had been one of marked reserve,
although there had been pourparlers at different times between the Belgian and the British authorities; and in fact it was not till Aug. 4 1014 that Belgium asked for the support of England, France and Russia, undertaking herself the defence of the forti- fied places. Yet, even had Belgium accepted British and French aid earlier and a united Allied front been formed along the Meuse, the strategic situation thus created would have been very difficult, owing to a cause which was operative whether the French ad- vanced to the Belgian Meuse or not. The line of the Meuse runs N.-S. between Mezieres and Maestricht, while the direction of the frontier between Mezieres and the Vosges is substantially E.-W. A German concentration in the region Aachen-Trier would therefore occupy a zone midway between these two lines, and could act in the direction of either as circumstances dictated. Thus, whether the French army, flung northward, was to go as far as the Belgian Meuse or only to the French territory adjacent, was certainly a question of very great local significance, because the 3oo-km. line of defence from the angle to the sea, destitute of natural defences and weak in artificial, was distinctly inferior to the short, strong, well-fortified line Givet-Namur-Liege. But it did not alter the fact that the German forces concentrated between Aachen and Trier might, after perplexing the defence by demonstrations, fling their weight upon the line between Mezieres and Verdun, break it by means of superior numbers, and so gain a position not only between the separated halves of the French but also nearer to Paris than either.
These conditions, together with Belgium's hesitating attitude, practically imposed the defensive principles upon which the French General Staff must proceed. Obscured as they were by the dramatic events of Aug. 1914, by the glorious insistence of Belgium, the French offensives into Alsace, Lorraine, and Ihe Ardennes, the tidal wave of the German I. and II. Armies trav- ersing the Belgian plain and northern France, it was neverthe- less on these principles that the German effort was shipwrecked. For in Sept. 1914 the breakwater of the defence was established solidly on the line, marked substantially by the Vosges, the natural defences of Lorraine, the C6te de Meuse, Verdun, the Montagne de Reims and the advanced defences of Paris, which strategic reasoning had already indicated as the basic line of defence for France in the given conditions.
These conditions include other alternatives than the one selected by the Germans; and it may be asserted that, given the fact of Belgium's resistance and of England's intervention, the course taken by the Germans was as against the alternative of a violation of Swiss neutrality, which would have occasioned much less concern to England than that of Belgium, and even as against that of a frontal forcing of the Lorraine defence, which perhaps was not as invulnerable as it was believed to be the course which was the least disadvantageous for France.
(H. BE.)
The French "Plan 17." The characteristic of all French plans of concentration up to those bearing the No. 16 was that they were all applications of the defensive principles outlined above, differing only in detail, and providing for an initial defensive phase of operations out of which an appropriate counter-offensive would arise when the occasion was ripe. From 1912 onwards, however, a new school of thought had begun to prevail in the French General Staff. The teachings of Colonel (afterwards General) Loiseau de Grandmaison, the constant improvement of the mobilization scheme in details, the sharper tone of policy and sentiment after the Agadir crisis, all combined to create a "younger school" in the staff which did not admit that the army was so inferior in power or war-readiness that the defensive need be assumed a priori, as had hitherto been the case. Military France, like the rest of military Europe, was caught by a wave of enthusiasm for the offensive per se; doctrines and text-books were revised, senior officers, and generalissimo-designate, having predilections, real or alleged, for the defensive, were got rid of; and as soon as it became clear that the process of mobilization and concentration had been sufficiently accelerated, "Plan 17" was drawn up, with the immediate general offensive in full force as its keynote.
