It is an old rule, that you cannot break through a battle front, which means that you are thrusting in a wedge which will draw fire on both sides. Pickett tried to break a battle front at Gettysburg. A frontal attack which was no less pitiful in its results was that of the Federals at Fredericksburg. Grant's hammering tactics against Lee succeeded only by the flanking operations of superior numbers. Strategically, the situation of the Central Powers was extremely strong. Aside from the fact that their preparedness in numbers of trained men, in arms and material, is too well known for mention here, their excellent network of railways enabled them to make rapid concentration. They had what is known as the interior line, which gave Meade his advantage at Gettysburg. Whether the interior line is three miles or a thousand miles long does not affect the principle involved. Interior lines mean quick transportation of reserves from point to point in concentration. It does not matter whether their numbers are hundreds or hundreds of thousands; the advantage is intrinsically the same. Joffre had probably fifteen hundred thousand on the interior line of the Marne. Meade had seventy thousand at Gettysburg. In keeping with all great plans that of the Central Powers was extremely simple. Austria was to look after Russia. She could mobilize more rapidly than Russia, and her army was counted upon to take the offensive into Russia and deliver a hard blow before the Russian was ready to receive her. Indeed, the Austrian was to attempt in the east what the German attempted in the west. The German army was confident that in any event the slowness of Russian mobilization would give it time for its daring venture in the west. As the French, too, had excellent railroad systems, they also would mobilize rapidly. The full strength of the German army, therefore, was thrown against the French and the little Belgian army of eighty thousand ill trained and equipped men in the first month of the war. By using their interior lines, striking first in the west and then in the east, the Germans were warranted on paper in counting on successes that might have ended the war within the first four or five months. The frontier of France from Switzerland to Luxemburg, when manned by the large numbers of the French army, became a battle front. There was no room for a flanking operation. German ambition for a decisive and prompt victory over the French army must have room for a turning movement. The Germans made the invasion of Belgium a military necessity for their purpose, which was the destruction of the French army. They had built the great 17-inch mortars for smashing the Belgian fortresses in order to open the gate for the flood which was to sweep southward to Paris. These guns were less practicable for field work or even for trench work, being best against cities and stationary guns in forts.