The Prussian system, as far as the men are concerned, was adopted after the disasters of Prussia early in the century, in order to pass great numbers of men through the ranks without attracting attention by keeping up a large peace army. The system is now maintained by Germany, Austria, and France for a different reason. Such powers desire to have an enormous force for war, but, for budgetary reasons, to keep with the flag in time of peace the smallest force which is consistent with training the men sufficiently to enable them upon mobilization to be brought back to their regiments as real soldiers. It is these considerations which have induced the younger and more thoughtful of the Prussian generals to force on Germany a reduction of the period of infantry service to two years. The army in time of peace becomes a mere training-school for war, and the service is made as short as possible, given the necessity of turning out a man who for some years will continue to have the traditions of a soldier. It is a question whether something has not been sacrificed, in France, at all events, to uniformity. A longer period of training is undoubtedly necessary to make an efficient cavalry soldier than is necessary to make an efficient infantry private; and a man who has served about two and a half years only in a cavalry regiment cannot in the majority of cases be brought back into the cavalry after he has returned to civil life. Cavalry, in the modern armies, is likely to be a diminishing force as war goes on. The armies will enter upon war with a number of infantry which can be kept up, the losses of war being supplied by reserve men as good as the men of the first line; but each army will enter upon war with a force of cavalry which will be rapidly destroyed if it is much used, and which will not be replaced in the same manner. The reserve cavalry of which the French press boasts is a paper force, and the pretended mobilization of two of its regiments a farce. The French would take the field with the cavalry of the first line only, seventy-nine regiments of five hundred horses (all over six years old), or less than half the eighty-four thousand cavalry with which Napoleon marched in 1812. The same thing might possibly be said of artillery as is said of cavalry but for the fact that Switzerland tells a different story as to the possibility of rapidly training artillerymen with a considerable measure of success. The French improvised artillery of the latter part of the war of 1870 were also a creditable force, while it was discovered to be impossible to create a cavalry.