their battle cry of 34 years before: "A Paris."

They could have occupied the country to the east of the Meuse, fortified
the long length of high cliffs along its right bank, and sat there like
a rock, letting the Allies smash themselves against it, whilst vast
armies could have been free to push the Russians back to St. Petersburg,
obtain supplies from Russia and so neutralise any British blockade.

Furthermore, having the fight nearer German soil would have given the
German people a better idea of the actual state of the war and helped to
stifle any lack of enthusiasm on the part of German Socialists which,
later on, was to develop into serious trouble.

It was a war of surprises.

Science had laid its new-won gifts at the feet of Mars.

It brought as new factors into human warfare, wireless telegraphy,
aeronautics and motor traction.

Wireless telegraphy, one of the greatest gifts to mankind in the saving
of human life at sea, and in the sending of messages of peace, utterly
failed during the stress of human strife.

It seemed that just as clashing human passions in war stultified all
thoughts of brotherly love and goodwill, so the ether waves from
military wireless plants clashed in the air and destroyed all
intelligence in messages.

In aeronautics, the swift aeroplane asserted its superiority over the
balloon, and where movements were in open country as between Liege and
the Aisne, it furnished a new and wonderful aid for reconnaissance.

It failed when the movements took place beneath cover, as in the
fighting in the thickly wooded country to the south of Compeigne; again,
when the French army moved out under cover of the houses of Paris and
environs before the battle of Marne; and finally when, in the conclusive
phases of the war the Allies moved north beneath the screen of the
forests of the Argonne and the Ardennes.

Motor traction counted most in the new aids of science. It brought into
the war the most vital factor of all human element--speed.

The great smash on the German right at the Marne, which gave the first
check to the German advance, was only possible because the French
General, Gallieni, moved 70,000 soldiers out of Paris in taxicabs and
other motor vehicles, and in six hours had them in action before even
the German aerial reconnaissance knew about it.

The motor brought speed into the fighting in running the cheering
soldiers to the front, and with auto hospitals brought the sorry w