her situation to the world, she provided for the new requirements so
abundantly that she has not yet betrayed any deficiency in material.
And while she was sweeping victoriously across northern France toward
Paris, with the belief that the city must fall before her big guns,
nevertheless her engineers took pains to prepare the Aisne line of
defense, which saved her armies from disaster and enabled them to keep
their tenacious grip on Belgium and northern France. This is the real
strength of Germany, the real import of the bitter lesson she is
teaching the world--the habit of preparation, discipline, organization,
thrift. On the specifically military side the French seem to have learned
this lesson well. They have fortified the ground between the present
front and Paris with line after line of defensive works. The fields are
gray with barbed wire. A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may
be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the _kepi_
of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere
in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western
front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part
on these precautions.

Whether the French can apply the inner meaning of the German lesson,
can incorporate it into their characters and transmit it to their
children, is a larger question for us as well as for them, for the
whole world. But their success in applying it in this war is all
the more noteworthy in contrast with the failure of their two great
allies, who were not invaded, not handicapped at the start, as was
France. The failure of Great Britain and of Russia to master the
lesson is so obvious, so lamentable, that it needs no emphasis here.
France, with the brunt of invasion only a few miles from the gates
of Paris, her factories and mines lost, has provided herself very
largely, has supplied Serbia with ammunition, Italy with artillery,