To have entered into details on an infinity of
matters would have necessitated the writing of a very much longer work.
However, I have supplied, I think, a good deal of precise information
respecting the events which I actually witnessed, and in this connexion,
perhaps, I may have thrown some useful sidelights on the war generally;
for many things akin to those which I saw, occurred under more or less
similar circumstances in other parts of France.
People who are aware that I am acquainted with the shortcomings of the
French in those already distant days, and that I have watched, as closely
as most foreigners can watch, the evolution of the French army in these
later times, have often asked me what, to my thinking, would be the
outcome of another Franco-German War. For many years I fully anticipated
another struggle between the two Powers, and held myself in readiness to
do duty as a war-correspondent. I long thought, also, that the signal for
that struggle would be given by France. But I am no longer of that
opinion. I fully believe that all French statesmen worthy of the name
realize that it would be suicidal for France to provoke a war with her
formidable neighbour.
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