The manner in which these immense armies were formed, organised, and moved in concert within a short distance of the French frontier, was one of the most notable of strategic exploits. In the space of nineteen or twenty days 430,000 men in the highest state of efficiency for war, with guns, horses, and other material, had been arrayed and prepared for the field, and now stood on the verge of the Rhineland ready to overrun Alsace and Lorraine. We know of no finer military movement, except perhaps the splendid concentration of Napoleon's forces on the Belgian frontier on the 14th of June, 1815; and it attests clearly the calculating forethought and ability of the Prussian Government, the high training and skill of its generals, and the discipline and power of the German troops. The French army, scattered and divided on the semicircle from Thionville to Belfort, and with its first line widely separated from the second, was already in no condition to offer a successful resistance to its mighty foe; it was not only much weaker in strength, being outnumbered fully two to one at the decisive points where it was threatened, it was also so disunited in its parts, that it could hardly collect 60,000 men in any position to withstand an attack. In fact, a glance at the map will show that along the whole line of the Saar and the Lauter it was exposed to be defeated in detail by a force infinitely superior in power; and this peril was aggravated by the circumstance, placed beyond dispute by the clearest evidence, that it believed itself completely secure, and that its leaders were planning a forward movement while their enemy was close at hand to destroy them.