These two facts--completion of the French mobilisation and the throwing back of the German plan by the defeat of the several armies in detail--are facts of the first importance. The aggregate losses sustained by the Germans were already huge. If, up to September 3, we put the total wastage of war from the outset at 500,000, remembering that the fatigues of a campaign conducted in a hurry mean a wastage from exhaustion equal at least to the losses in action, we shall, great as such a total may appear, still be within the truth. But more serious even than the losses was the dislocation of the plan. The army of the Crown Prince of Germany, which was to have advanced by rapid marches through the defiles of the Argonne, to have invested Verdun, and to have taken the fortified frontier in the rear, found itself unable to effect that object. It was held up in the hills. That meant that the armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and the army of General von Heeringen were kept out of the main scheme of operations. Consider what this meant. It meant that the freedom of movement of the whole chain of armies was for the time being gone. It meant further that, so long as that state of things continued, the primary condition on which the whole German scheme depended--a superiority of military strength--could not be realised. Not only were the German armies no longer, in a military sense, homogeneous, but a considerable part of the force, being on the wrong side of the fortified frontier, could not be brought to bear, and another considerable part of the force, the army of the Crown Prince of Germany, had fallen into an entanglement. Were the armies of von Kluck, von Bülow, von Hausen, and Duke Albert, the latter already badly mauled, sufficient to carry out the scheme laid down? Quite obviously not. Obviously not, because on the one hand there was the completion of the French mobilisation, and the presence of a British army; and on the other hand there were the losses met with, and the reductions in the _applicable_ force. Something must be done to pull affairs round. The something was to begin with the extraction of the Crown Prince of Germany from his predicament. If that could be effected and the fortified frontier turned, then the armies of the Crown Prince of Bavaria and of General von Heeringen could make their entry into the main arena; and the primary condition of superiority in strength restored. Thus it is evident that the events preceding September 3, dictated the movement which, on September 3, changed for good the aspect of the campaign. FOOTNOTES: [10] These figures are given on the authority of M. de Broqueville, Belgian Prime Minister and Minister of War, who has stated that the total here quoted was officially admitted by the German Government. [11] There are usually two machine guns to each section of infantry.