seemingly very inadequate to face the enormously greater power of
Austria-Hungary. But the men had become practically all soldiers,
very many of them tried veterans of the recent Balkan War; their
country is mountainous and admirably fitted for defensive
warfare, and their power of resistance to invasion was quickly
shown to be great.

Belgium, the other early seat of the war, is still smaller in
area, having but 11,366 square miles. But it is very densely
populated, possessing 7,432,784 inhabitants. Its army proved
brave and capable, its fortifications modern and well adapted to
defense, and small as was its field force it held back the far
more numerous German invaders until France and Great Britain had
their troops in position for available defense. This small
intermediate kingdom therefore played a very important part in
the outset of the war.

If one judges by the figures given of the available military
strength of the nations involved, the huge host said to have
followed Xerxes to the invasion of Greece could easily be far
surpassed in modern warfare. The fact is, however, that these
huge figures greatly exceed the numbers that could, except in the
most extreme exigency, be available for use in the field, and for
real active service we should be obliged to greatly reduce these
paper estimates. It must be taken into account that the fields
and factories of the nations cannot be too greatly denuded of
their trained workers. It was a shrewd saying of Napoleon
Bonaparte that "An army marches on its stomach," and the
important duty of keeping the stomach adequately filled can not
be overlooked.