Overwhelming detailed evidence was adduced to show that the Germans had made every preparation for marching through Belgium. The great military camps in close proximity to the frontier, the enormous depôts, the reticulation of railways, the endless sidings, revealed with the utmost clearness and beyond all doubt their design. Liège would be taken within a few hours of the declaration of war, possibly even before it, by a rush of motor cars and cyclists from the camp at Elsenborn. That camp was now (August, 1911) crowded with troops, and inquisitive persons and ordinary country-folk were already being roughly turned back and prevented from approaching it. What would Belgium do in the face of such an onslaught? Nothing could save Liège, but French troops might reach Namur in time to aid in its defence. For the rest the Belgian army, assuming that Belgium resisted the invader, would withdraw into the great entrenched camp and fortress of Antwerp. This extensive area, intersected by a tangle of rivers and canals and defended by three circles of forts, would become the last refuge of the Belgian monarchy and people. The position of Holland was also examined. It was not thought that the Germans would overrun Holland as they would Belgium, but they might find it very convenient to march across the curiously shaped projection of Holland which lay between Germany and Belgium, and which in the British General Staff parlance of that time was called “the Maestricht Appendix.” They would certainly do this if any considerable body of their troops was thrown west of the Belgian Meuse. The French plans for meeting this formidable situation were not told in detail to us; but it was clear that they hoped to forestall and rupture the German enveloping movement by a counter-offensive of their own on the greatest scale. The number of divisions available on both sides and on all fronts when mobilisation was completed were estimated as follows:— French 85 German 110