cannot be doubted that a great commander would have made such an use of this army that he would long have kept the invaders back, and possibly changed the whole situation. But ability and caution were especially requisite, for the troops now under MacMahon's orders were in fact raw or demoralized soldiers; and plain common sense ought to have suggested that they were not fit for operations that demanded speed, or that could bring them in contact with a superior enemy. At this critical moment a plan was formed, the responsibility for which is unknown, but which led to the greatest of military disasters. Considering the state of MacMahon's forces, there can be no doubt that his proper course was to delay his enemies as they advanced on Châlons, to endeavour to defend the Marne and the Seine, and, retreating slowly, to fall back until he had reached a position at which he would be in the flank of the Germans as they approached Paris. A great general, operating in this way, would have retarded the foe for weeks, would certainly have inflicted much injury on him, and while he inured his own troops to war, would assuredly have kept his army intact in order to make a stand for the capital, the fortifications of which, with a force before them, would perhaps have changed the issue of the campaign. It is true that the strategy would have been an apparent abandonment of Bazaine; but this really was inevitable. Bazaine, as the event proved, was not in need of immediate relief; shut up, as he was, inactive at Metz, he still detained an immense mass of Germans around the great fortress; and in any case, as affairs now stood, the first consideration ought to have been the security of the last army of France, and a settled purpose to defend the capital. Had Wellington been in MacMahon's place, we are convinced that these would have been his tactics; and we feel certain that he would have succeeded, if not in defeating the Germans in the field, at least in greatly reducing their strength, in preserving Paris from real danger, and in saving his forces for an effort to be undertaken when his raw troops were rendered more equal to their antagonists. Instead of a rational operation like this, a resolve was made at the French head-quarters which can only be described as insanely rash. It was determined to relieve Bazaine with MacMahon's weak and undisciplined army; and the manner in which this was to be done was marked by thoughtless and strange presumption. The French troops were to leave Châlons, and moving northwards to Rheims and Rethel, were to strike from that place across the Argonnes, to pass the Meuse and attain Montmédy, and descending thence upon Thionville, were to fall on the rear of the Germans at Metz, to extricate Bazaine, and in conjunction with him, to annihilate the astounded enemy by an attack worthy of the first Napoleon. By this operation MacMahon's army was to slip round the