The Prussian Government adhered to
these ideas, to which full effect was given in 1866, when the Prussian
army, reorganised in 1860, crushed in ten days the army of Austria, and
in 1870 when, in a month from the first shot fired, it defeated one half
of the French army at Gravelotte and captured the other half at Sedan.
These events proved to all continental nations the necessity of adopting
the system of the nation in arms and giving to their whole male
population, up to the limits of possibility, the training and the
organisation necessary for success in war.
The principle that war is a struggle for existence, and that the only
effective defence consists in the destruction of the adversary's force,
received during the age of Napoleon an even more absolute demonstration
at sea than was possible on land. Great Britain, whether she would or
no, was drawn into the European conflict. The neglect of the army and of
the art of war into which, during the eighteenth century, her
Governments had for the most part fallen, made it impracticable for her
to take the decisive part which she had played in the days of William
III. and of Marlborough in the struggle against the French army; her
contributions to the land war were for the most part misdirected and
futile.
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