Nor can it do any harm for our politicians and people to realize the unquestionable if unpalatable fact that the existence of this country is dependent on the good-will of France, the supreme air and submarine power commanding both the vital centres of England and our oversea communications at their most vulnerable points――that “Paris” is able to shoot at our Achilles’ heel, and has “two strings to its bow” for the purpose. THE ARMY WEAPON Finally, what is the future of this alternative “punch” to the air attack? No future, assuredly, unless the army limb of the body military is thoroughly overhauled and inoculated with the serum of mobility, for the present type of army is suffering from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, its joints far too stiff to deliver an effective punch. The outstanding lesson of the Great War was the powerlessness of the high commands to attain decisive successes――a condition due to three main factors. First, the unwieldy masses put into the field allowed neither opportunity nor room for manœuvre; second, these slow-moving infantry masses were too vulnerable a target to modern fire-weapons; third, their numbers imposed so great a strain on the means of supply that offensive after offensive was stultified by the breakdown of communications――the commanders of the Great War were as unhappily placed as the proverbial puppy with a tin can attached to its tail. The years 1914–18 show the “Nation in Arms” theory carried to its climax; numbers of troops and quantity of _material_ had been the ruling ideas of the General Staffs of Europe for half a century. What was the upshot? That generalship became the slave of the monster it had created. The artist of war yielded place to the artisan, because we forgot the text preached by Marshal Saxe two centuries before, that “multitudes serve only to perplex and embarrass.” Watching it from across the Styx, Marshal Saxe can be imagined as uttering that favourite quotation of his: “War is a trade for the ignorant, a science for men of genius.” What are the obvious deductions from the three factors we have mentioned?