Some critics pronounced for the passage by the gap of the Meuse, along both banks of that river. As the German army had the advantage of a more speedy mobilization, it was generally credited with the design of taking the offensive in this region of Belgian territory. So far, we had no cause for doubting that our fortresses were impregnable, still less that they were capable of resisting. The progress of ballistics in Germany and Austria, the terrible results gained by unremitting toil in the workshops of Krupp and Skoda, were still unknown to the outside world. No one suspected the existence of German 17-inch and Austrian 12-inch mortars, which would shatter a fort of concrete and steel in a few hours under a fire of projectiles weighing nearly a ton. Other writers limited the German march to the right bank of the Meuse, across Belgian Luxemburg, despite the scarcity of roads and the obstacles that the broken nature of the country would offer to a rapid onset. Luxemburg, an outlying spur of our territory in the Ardennes district, seemed impossible for a Belgian force to defend. The force in question would have been too far distant from the base of operations. Some military prophets, such as General Déjardin in Belgium and General Maitrot in France, made a very shrewd conjecture. They held that the enemy would operate mainly in great masses on the left bank of the Meuse, where he would have ample room for deploying. In point of fact, however, the plan of the German Staff had not been fathomed in all its bearings. Among those who could speak with authority, the greater number imagined that only a part—the right wing—of the army directed against France would pass through Belgium. They had not guessed the bold manœuvre, the tremendous developments, that we have seen carried out: to leave a “curtain”[19] of troops along the Vosges line, and with three-fourths of the army to cross the Meuse at several points, from Visé right down to Dinant; to take Liège and Namur by storm, if necessary; to march on Brussels, sweeping aside the Belgian army if it should try to withstand the advance; and from there to turn off southwards by the various routes that lead to Paris. The whole north-western section of France was unprovided with defences, excepting the fortress of Maubeuge. Once the plains of Belgium had been traversed, the road to Paris would be open. The reader must picture to himself, not a stream or a torrent, but a veritable sea of men, inundating our country from Holland to Luxemburg, a million and a half to two million soldiers! The defensive plans of Germany’s opponents had not allowed for the inrush of such an avalanche through Belgium. At the outset of the war, according to an official Note issued by the Republican Government, the whole of the French forces were disposed over against the German border, from Belfort to the Belgian frontier.