As soon as relations became "strained" between France and Germany, according to the term used in diplomacy, the king of Prussia ordered home all his subjects who had found employment in France, especially those in Alsace and Lorraine.[1] Long before this, those provinces had been overrun with photographers, pedlers, and travelling workmen, commissioned to make themselves fully acquainted with the roads, the by-paths, the resources of the villages, and the character of the rural officials. In the case of France, however, though all the reports concerning military stores looked well on paper, the old guns mounted on the frontier fortresses were worthless, and the organization of the army was so imperfect that scarcely more than two hundred thousand troops could be sent to defend the French frontier from Switzerland to Luxemburg; while Germany, with an army that could be mobilized in eleven days, was ready by the 1st of August to pour five hundred thousand men across the Rhine. The emperor placed great reliance on his _mitrailleuses_,--a new engine of war that would fire a volley of musketry at once, but which, though horribly murderous, has not proved of great value in actual warfare. Towards the Rhine were hurried soldiers, recruits, cannon, horses, artillery, ammunition, wagons full of biscuit and all manner of munitions of war. The roads between Strasburg and Belfort were blocked up, and in the disorder nobody seemed to know what should be done. Every one was trying to get orders. The telegraph lines were reserved for the Government. Quartermasters were roaming about in search of their depots, colonels were looking for their regiments, generals for their brigades or divisions. There were loud outcries for salt, sugar, coffee, bacon, and bridles. Maps of Germany as far as the shores of the Baltic were being issued to soldiers who, alas! were never to pass their own frontier. But while this was the situation near the seat of war, in other parts of France the scene was different, especially in Brest and other seaports. These towns were crowded with soldiers and sailors; the streets were filled with half-drunken recruits bawling patriotic sentiments in tipsy songs. And now, for the first time since the Empire came into existence, might be heard the unaccustomed strains of the "Marseillaise." It had been long suppressed in France; but when war became imminent, it was encouraged for the purpose of exciting military ardor. [Footnote 1: Erckmann-Chatrian, La Plébiscite.]