This line obviously offers an alternative route for the transport of troops from Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle to Dalheim; but of still greater significance is the information given by the writer of the _Fortnightly Review_ articles as to the changes carried out at Dalheim itself, transforming that place from "an unimportant halting-place" into "a point of concentration of great strategical importance" on the frontiers of Holland. Inasmuch as the line from Dalheim to Roermond and on to Antwerp was already a double one, the alterations made at Dalheim were confined to a liberal provision of railway sidings in order that, as we have seen was done on the Belgian frontier, a large body of troops could be concentrated for a possible invasion, in this instance, either of Holland itself, or of Belgium by the alternative route across the south-eastern corner of Dutch territory. One of the Dalheim sidings, about a quarter of a mile in length, situate on a high embankment; and, in order that it could be reached without interfering with other traffic, a bridge over which the main line runs east of Dalheim station was widened to allow of the laying across it of a third pair of rails. Other sidings adjoining Dalheim station have no fewer than ten pairs of parallel rails, and there are still others on the west of the same station, towards the Dutch frontier. At Wegberg and Rheydt, east of Dalheim, further sidings were provided which, like those at Dalheim, would not possibly be required for other than military reasons. Summing up the situation in regard alike to the Belgian and the Dutch frontiers, Mr. Boulger remarks, in his article of February, 1914:-- Thus on an arc extending from Treves to Nijmegen (excluding from our purview what is called the main concentration on the Saar, behind Metz), the German War Department has arranged for a simultaneous advance by fourteen separate routes across Holland, Belgium and the Grand Duchy. In view of all these facts, there is no possible room for doubt as to the prolonged and extensive nature of the preparations made by Germany for the war she instigated in 1914; but the particular consideration with which we are here concerned is that of seeing to what extent those preparations related either to the construction of strategical lines of railway or to the adaptation of existing lines to strategical purposes.