If the example of the Franco-Prussian War is followed the Germans will put as many as six different armies into the field, each with some four army-corps. There are twenty-five army-corps, and the fighting part of a single army-corps, which numbers some 41,000 men, strings out on an ordinary road to a distance of twenty-six kilometers or more than sixteen miles. As the food supplies, medical and surgical apparatus and ammunition wagons have to follow at a considerable distance we may estimate the length of the whole column at more than double this amount. Were the whole standing army (not to speak of the reserves) to travel along the same road it would take twenty-five days to pass a fixed point. It may be said here that the number of direct roads passing from Germany into France is small and that for purposes of invasion the possession of Belgium was a strategic necessity. Its occupation meant victory or defeat in the great struggle and the devil take the consequences. Belgium and France are so at one that the French have so trusted to the forts of Liege and Namur, which they believed to be impregnable, that they have done little to fortify their own borders in that direction. Who the commanding generals of the German army are to be has not yet been made public in America. Judging by the holders of high positions in peace-time they will be Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden, Duke Albert of Württemberg, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and the generals Bülow, Eichhorn, Heeringen and Prittwitz. Whether or not the German crown-prince will be given a command is doubtful. He is brave and dashing but impetuous and unbalanced, and his relations with his father have been somewhat strained. I am told that at maneuvers he expects far too much from his men and horses, though his pleasant manners and his joking way make him very popular. He may, of course, prove the Frederick the Great of the campaign should it last sufficiently long for him to gain the proper experience. PART III THE NAVY