imposed upon German strategy would be greatly
lessened. Though even then the mere having to defend four outlying
corners instead of a centre would produce confusion and embarrassment
the moment numerical inferiority had appeared upon the side of the
defence. But, as a fact, there is no such common factor.
Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium, East Prussia and Silesia, stand
strategically badly separated one from the other. Even the two on the
East and the two on the West, though apparently forming pairs upon the
map, are not dependent on one system of communications, and are cut
off from each other by territory difficult or hostile, while between
the Eastern and the Western group there is a space of five hundred
miles.

Let us, before discussing the political embarrassment to strategy
produced by these four widely distant and quite separate areas,
translate the diagram in the terms of a sketch map.

On the following sketch map, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, East Prussia,
and Silesia are shaded, as were the four corners of the diagram. No. 1
is Belgium, 2 is East Prussia, 3 is Alsace-Lorraine, 4 is Silesia. The
area occupied by the German Empire, including its present occupation
of Belgium, is marked by the broad outline; and the areas shaded
represent, not the exact limits of the four territories that are so
important, but those portions of them which are essential: the
non-Polish portion of Silesia, the non-Polish portion of East Prussia,
the plain of Belgium, and all Alsace-Lorraine.

[Illustration: Sketch 13.]

Now the reason that each of these must at all costs be preserved from
invasion is, as I have said, different in each case, and we shall do
well to examine what those reasons are; for upon them depends the
political hesitation they inevitably, cause to arise in the plans of
the Great General Staff.

1. _Belgium._ The military annexation of Belgium has been a result of
the war, and, from the German point of view, an unexpected result.
Germany both hoped and expected that her armies would pass through
Belgium as they did, in fact, pass through Luxembourg. The resistance
of Belgium produced the military annexation of that country; the reign
of terror exercised therein has immobilized about 100,000 of the
German troops who would otherwise be free for the front; the checking
of the advance into France has turned the German general political
objective against England, and, to put the matter in the vaguest but
most fundame