me true--_yet._ I think in the end he will come
true, but not so far as this war is concerned, and to make that clear
it is necessary to trouble the reader with a little disquisition upon
war--omitting as far as humanly possible all mention of Napoleon's
campaigns.

The development of war has depended largely upon two factors. One of
these is invention. New weapons and new methods have become available,
and have modified tactics, strategy, the relative advantage of offensive
and defensive. The other chief factor in the evolution of the war has
been social organisation. As Machiavelli points out in his _Art of War_,
there was insufficient social stability in Europe to keep a properly
trained and disciplined infantry in the field from the passing of the
Roman legions to the appearance of the Swiss footmen. He makes it very
clear that he considers the fighting of the Middle Ages, though frequent
and bloody, to be a confused, mobbing sort of affair, and politically
and technically unsatisfactory. The knight was an egotist in armour.
Machiavelli does small justice to the English bowmen. It is interesting
to note that Switzerland, that present island of peace, was regarded by
him as the mother of modern war. Swiss aggression was the curse of the
Milanese. That is a remark by the way; our interest here is to note that
modern war emerges upon history as the sixteenth century unfolds, as
an affair in which the essential factor is the drilled and trained
infantryman. The artillery is developing as a means of breaking the
infantry; cavalry for charging them when broken, for pursuit and
scouting. To this day this triple division of forces dominates soldiers'
minds. The mechanical development of warfare has consisted largely in
the development of facilities for enabling or hindering the infantry
to get to close quarters. As that has been made easy or difficult the
offensive or the defensive has predominated.

A history of military method for the last few centuries would be a
record of successive alternate steps in which offensive and defensive
contrivances pull ahead, first one and then the other. Their relative
fluctuations are marked by the varying length of campaigns. From the
very outset we have the ditch and the wall; the fortified place upon a
pass or main road, as a check to the advance. Artillery improves, then
fortification improves. The defensive holds its own for a long period,
wars are mainly siege wars, and for a centu