eft
undecided, or once let the indiscriminate destruction of commercial
marine be seriously begun, and she is at the mercy of that enemy. For
she cannot feed herself save by supplies from without, and she cannot
take part in the supplying of armies with men and munitions upon the
continent.

(_e_) She is open to fear aggression upon any one of her independent
colonies oversea, and yet she is not able to draw upon them for the
whole of their potential strength, or, indeed, for more than a very
small proportion of it. In other words, the British Fleet guarantees
some fifteen million of European race beyond the seas from attack by
the enemy, but cannot draw from these fifteen million more than an
insignificant fraction of the million of men and more which, fully
armed, they might furnish; nor has she any control over their finance,
so as to be able to count upon the full weight of their wealth; nor
can she claim their resources in goods and munitions. She can only
obtain these by paying for them.

There is here a very striking contrast between her position and that
of the Germanic Powers.

(_f_) Her isolation and maritime supremacy, coupled with her
industrial character, make her during the strain of equipment the
workshop of the Allies. That this is a great advantage is evident; but
the disadvantage attaching to it is that very large proportions of her
manhood are necessarily withdrawn from the field for the purposes of
her shipbuilding, her communications, her manufactory of arms and all
kinds of supplies, her seafaring work, both civil and military.

Of the two other main Allies, the French disadvantage may be thus
summarized, and it is slight:--

(_a_) The French political frontier, as established since the defeat
of the French in 1871, is an open frontier. It has no natural features
upon which the defensive can rely. In the lack of this the French
fortified at very heavy expense that portion of their frontier which
faced their certain enemy, and established a line from Verdun to
Belfort calculated to check the first movement of his offensive. But
all the two hundred miles to the north of this, the whole line between
Verdun and the North Sea, was virtually open. There were, indeed,
certain fortified places upon that line, but they formed no
consecutive system, and, as their armaments grew old, they were not
brought up to date. The truth is, that the defence of France upon this
frontier was really left to the co-