"The plan of a war on the part of the State assuming the offensive in those times consisted generally in the conquest of one or other of the enemy's provinces; the plan of the defender was to prevent this. The plan of campaign was to take one or other of the enemy's fortresses, or to prevent one of our own being taken; it was only when a battle became unavoidable for this purpose that it was sought for and fought. Whoever fought a battle without this unavoidable necessity, from mere innate desire of gaining a victory, was reckoned a general with too much daring." For armies were too precious to be lightly risked. "Winter quarters, in which the mutual relations of the two parties almost entirely ceased, formed a distinct limit to the activity which was considered to belong to one campaign." "As long as war was universally conducted in this manner, all was considered to be in the most regular order." "Thus there was eminence and perfection of every kind, and even Field-Marshal Daun, to whom it was chiefly owing that Frederick the Great completely attained his object, and Maria Theresa completely failed in hers, notwithstanding that could still pass for a great general." Beyond this stage of military thought, many in this country have not yet advanced. * * * * * "Thus matters stood when the French Revolution broke out; Austria and Prussia tried their diplomatic art of war; this very soon proved insufficient. Whilst, according to the usual way of seeing things, all hopes were placed on a very limited military force in 1793, such a force as no one had any conception of made its appearance. War had suddenly become again an affair of the people, and that of a people numbering thirty millions, every one of whom regarded himself as a citizen of the State." "_By this participation of the people in the war_, instead of a cabinet and an army, a whole nation with its natural weight came into the scale. Henceforth the means available--the efforts which might be called forth--had no longer any definite limits; the energy with which the war itself might be conducted had no longer any counterpoise, and consequently the danger to the adversary had risen to the extreme." If only our politicians could learn this old lesson of the French Revolution! For many, too many, of them appear to derive their ideas of war to-day from some dim reminiscent recollections of school histories of the wars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To continue: "After all this was perfected by the hand of Bonaparte, this military power based on the strength of the whole nation, marched over Europe, smashing everything in pieces so surely and certainly, that where it only encountered the old-fashioned armies the result was not doubtful for a moment.