As a result of the thoughtless adoption of _franc-tireur_ methods of warfare in Belgium, with the support and approval of the authorities, the War acquired from the outset still more of the character of a struggle of nation against nation. The principle that war is directed only against the armed strength of the enemy-State and not against its population could not under these circumstances be upheld by our troops. They found themselves compelled to resort to severe measures of retaliation. Thus the War acquired a character of brutality which is otherwise very alien to the nature of our well-conducted German soldiers. The self-assurance of the French army, which had already begun to waver, was restored after the Battle of the Marne. Subsequently the French authorities left no stone unturned in order, with the aid of a corrupt and lying Press, to sustain the confidence of the nation in an ultimate victory. The continued augmentation of the allied English army, the alleged inexhaustible reserves of Russia (in spite of all the defeats which she had suffered), the entry into the War of Italy, and, later, of Roumania as Allies, the munitions furnished by America, and finally her open partnership against us--all this had to be utilised again and again to strengthen the tissue of lies which France wove round herself more and more closely, so closely that the French finally lost all sense of truth. Thus the French army is inspired, even if not consciously so in all its members, with the feeling that it is not only a question of freeing the native soil from a hated invader, but also of a struggle for the future world-position of France. The characteristics of the French soldier have always been a product rather of his race than of any military training. They explain the devotion and the contempt of death with which whole divisions have hurled themselves forward again and again in dense masses in hopeless attempts to break through.