into actual details and immediate elements; this time, instead of appreciating the present, it will be more useful to gaze curiously at the future, and to try to estimate what a mobilization would produce. Mobilization alone would give the precise measure of the work done since 1871; it alone would indicate the ultimate realizable value of that work; it alone would supply a thorough, searching test of the military institutions of the country; it alone would furnish reliable evidence of the practical adequacy of the preparations made. How would it be carried through? Would everything break down again as in 1870? Would the results of the last war be reproduced under the present system? Would the helpless disorder of seven years ago be renewed all over again? Or has France at last developed not only an army, but also an organization which would enable her, in spite of the weak points of her system, to get that army rapidly, smoothly, and steadily into the field?
In seeking a reply to these questions, it is of course essential to commence by examining the rules which determine the conditions under which a mobilization would now be conducted. Those rules are detailed in the third section of the law of 24th July 1873 on the general organization of the army, supplemented by the additional laws of 19th March and 18th November 1875. It is prescribed in those laws that the French army may be mobilized henceforth either by a direct written order addressed to each individual member of the reserves and delivered to him in person by the gendarmerie, or that it may be called out en masse by the far simpler and more expeditious process of "publication par voie d'affiches sur la voie publique, sans attendre la notification individuelle." By this latter plan (which is entirely new) every man liable to serve, whether in the active or the territorial army, may be directed to start off to the depot of his regiment without waiting for an individual summons; a simple posting-bill stuck up in his village will fix the day on which he is to join. This measure is so practical and so intelligent, that of course the Germans have just copied it from France. It cannot, indeed, be doubted that it will be successively adopted throughout Europe, and that it will be the only plan employed in all future mobilizations; for it implies a gain of two days in the joining of the reservists, and consequently in the concentration of troops. And, with war conducted as it is now, two days may mean a victory.
Unfortunately, however, the laws which set forth the duties of reservists are not all easy to be understood; they ought to be as clear as words can make them, but the latest and most important of them is, on the contrary, the least comprehensible of all the new military enactments. All the other laws, without exception, are to be carried into execution by some one in authority who can expound them to the soldiers under him; but the law of November 1875 relating to the functions of reservists, which is to be carried out, for a large part, by the reservists themselves, is couched in a language which must render it hopelessly unintelligible to laborers and peasants. And yet those laborers and peasants are supposed to be ready to obey it scrupulously, without any aid from anybody. It is true that extracts from this law are printed in the register-book which each reservist has in his possession; but what is the use of that if he cannot comprehend the extracts? Why, the mere title of the law is enough to frighten the best-intentioned soldier. It bears the scarcely credible heading of "Loi ayant pour objet de coordonner les lois du 27 Juillet 1872, 24 Juillet 1873, 12, 19 Mars et 6 Novembre 1875, avec le code de justice militaire." And yet all this means in reality "Law defining the duties of the reservists of the French army"!
There is no space here to point out all the defects of this law, but a couple of examples of them may be given at hazard. One is, that the two totally distinct words, "domicile" and "residence," are employed in it perpetually, without any definition of the meaning of either of them. The other is, that it establishes two sorts of military justice—one for the active army, and one for the territorial corps. If a fortress is surrendered by a regular officer, he is liable to be shot; but if its capitulation is signed by a territorial commander, he can only be imprisoned. Crime in one case becomes misdemeanor in the other. Furthermore, while the code of military justice adopts the universal principle of never admitting extenuating circumstances for military offences, this law of 1875 concedes them in certain cases. All this is in absolute contradiction to the law of general organization, which declares (Art. 35) that "the territorial army, when mobilized, is governed by the laws and regulations which apply to the active army."
This law must be made over again. It must be brought into harmony with the principles and the practice of the other pre-existing army laws; and what is al-
