They should entrench themselves conveniently along or near their frontier, constructing a vast system of field fortifications, open and concealed, sham and real, according to every device known at that time; and in these positions they should await the first shock of the Germans. I believed that the Germans did not appreciate the tremendous power of modern weapons, particularly the rifle. I based this on what I had seen of their methods in their manœuvres of 1906 and 1909 and on what I had learned about rifle fire in the South African War. The Germans were the challengers; they were the stronger, but not, in my opinion, strong enough for the continuous storming and reduction of well-fortified positions held by French regular armies or by British troops. I did not, of course, contemplate that the French would dig one uniform line along the whole length of their frontier. They would naturally treat the problem selectively, here resisting with their utmost strength, there allowing the enemy to penetrate and bulge into unpromising country or into some well-considered tactical area only to be brought up by lines fifteen to twenty miles in rear. They would not hesitate to sell the Germans piece by piece a certain amount of ground for disproportionate losses. The universal tactical object to be pursued in this first phase should be to force the Germans to expose themselves in the open to the rifle and artillery fire of well-trained Frenchmen. It would be reasonable to hope that a process of this kind, continued for three or four days along the whole front, would have resulted in far heavier losses to the Germans than to the French, and that a larger proportion of the German than of the French armies would have been deployed and extended. One hoped in this way to see the French take toll of the manhood of the German nation at the outset of the war, as the British Army did on a small scale at Mons and Le Cateau. This would in no way have excluded tactical action by means of counter-attacks wherever opportunities presented themselves. Meanwhile at least two-fifths of the French armies should have been held back in a great mass of manœuvre, north-east of Paris. With this mass of manœuvre I hoped the British Army would have been associated. This general disposition should not have been compromised by any effort to proceed to the relief of Belgium, except with cavalry and small detachments to encourage the Belgians and to gain time. I was, of course, firmly persuaded, in common with the British General Staff, that the main German encircling movement would take place through Belgium and would comprise considerable forces west of the Belgian Meuse. I hoped that if this movement eventuated and prolonged itself in great strength, the French would find an opportunity of using the greater part of their armies of manœuvre against it after the Germans had been well punished along the whole front. At any rate, that is the sort of way in which I