"You don't see it," he said, "because you don't realize that the Wonder of War is not the machines used by the men who wage it, but the men themselves and the handling of them. Modern war, like ancient war, consists only in the spirit of the fighters and the skill of the commanders. There's not a great deal of difference between a bayonet and flint knife, a rifle is but an explosive form of bow and arrow, and the great 42-centimeter siege-gun of the Boches is only a sling-shot made a little bigger and throwing a little farther. The morale of men, my boy, and the strategy of generals are the wonders of war, as they were in the days of Rameses, Cæsar and Napoleon. It's more difficult, now, because you're moving millions of men and tens of millions of tons of munitions and material. "Let us take the strategy of the present situation, as the greatest armies of the world face it this sunny summer morning. Namur is the 'second base' or operative corner. Paris is the 'home base.' Verdun is 'first base.' Condé, to the extreme left of the English troops, is 'third base.' The German long line is bent round the angle. This has been very skillfully done, for it enables the line to attack at any point. But, see, we could throw our reënforcing fourth army on either the left or the right wing in two days' time. Suppose we threw it on the western wing. It would take at least two weeks before the enemy's eastern wing could march up, even if it were good tactics to do so." "Why?" "Because of the enormous difficulty of moving hundreds of thousands of men. No civilian has any idea of it. Suppose you want to move five army corps--that's a quarter of a million men--how long do you think it would take? Your easternmost corps would have to begin the march by retreating at least thirty miles before they could begin to turn, in order to leave room for the rest to turn inside them. The first army corps would have to wait until the second countermarched in line with it, both first and second would have to wait for the third, and four corps would be idle while the fifth corps came into position.