ported feed for cattle will seriously interfere with beef, milk, and pork production and bring a larger demand upon the local grain supply för food, larger in all probability than can be met. Prof. F. Wohltmann of Halle, Germany, believes that areas of production of foodstuffs can be increased and additional supplies drawn from Roumania, Belgium, and other areas outside, so that Germany is not in danger of being starved out.-(Deutsche Tageszeitung, Sept. 22, 1914). Some of these sources of supply seem decidedly doubtful. Indications are that the cereal crop of Germany is normal this year and that there was ample labor to harvest it.

Potatoes are Germany's most important hoed crop, occupying 12 per cent of the total cultivated area, while all other hoed crops together cover only 4 per cent. The 82 million acres devoted to the crop is more than double that in the United States and the harvest of 40 million tons more than four times our total. (Mo. Bull. Agric. Intelligence and Plant Diseases, Sept., 1913). (U. S. Dept. Agric. Bull. 47). Of this immense crop about 13 million tons are used for human food, 16 millions for cattle feed, 211⁄2 millions for distilling and 1⁄2 million for drying. Of these dried potatoes a flour is made which may to some extent supplement wheat and rye flour. The per capita consumption of potatoes in Germany is 7.3 bu. per year. In the United States it is about 2.6 bu. (The 1914 potato crop in Germany is reported to be about 80 million tons, double the above average figure).

It is fortunate for Germany's meat supply that the economic pressure of growing industrialism has during past decades caused a great decline in the sheep industry with a corresponding increase in the production of swine. The omnivorous tastes of this animal combined with the shortness of the period in which it attains a marketable size and the excellence of pork products for food are decidedly in favor of its production at this time (Fig. 4). The most recent census shows Germany to be capable of producing about 8 million beef animals, 5 million sheep and 26 million hogs per year. (Dernburg: Am. Review of Reviews, Nov., 1914).

As concerns the supply of beef and milk-producing cattle Germany seems to be at a disadvantage. Cattle in Europe depend much upon pastures. The mild humid coastlands of France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark show the greatest cattle concentration (Fig. 5). Ireland also is an important storehouse of cattle for England. These supplies however would not suffice if importations were stopped. Germany is certainly not better off and importation for her is impossible. If a meat supply is to be developed within her borders, it will doubtless be through hog-raising. Germany now leads Europe in the magnitude of this branch of animal industry. Moreover, pork has the advantage of maturing in one year instead of two or three and of making growth on a wider range of feed products than cattle. It is feared, however, that grain shortage will curtail all forms of animal industry.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE.

C

By Dr. Joseph Partsch

Professor of Geography, University of Leipzig

Copyrighted, 1903, by D. Appleton & Company, New York.

ENTRAL Europe is full, at the present day,* of a rich and civilised life. It has blossomed in the sunshine of peace, and only under this star can go on prospering undisturbed. But a love of peace on the part of the populations who inhabit it is not all that is necessary. Central Europe has been the battlefield of foreign peoples, the object and the prey of conquering neighbours, and can never forget that constant thought and constant labour are necessary in order to be ever ready in defence of its soil and its industry. There is no other part of Europe whose position, in case a fresh military period were to set the world in flames, would be so much threatened as would that of Central Europe. Who can dare to say that such dangers as were undergone by Ferdinand the Second and Frederick the Second may not once more befall the powers of Central Europe? Would they be strong enough if the cry "Enemies all around" were once more to compel them to lay their hands to the sword? In answering this serious question geographical facts take a decisive part, and invite us to survey the means of defence along the frontiers.

The western border of Central Europe is that which has undergone most variation during recent centuries, and has been the subject of most recent conflict. Here, even in the present day, is the most serious point of tension. In opposition to the French efforts at expansion, which at one time succeeded in setting back this frontier as far as the Baltic, the European Powers took measures, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, to protect Germany, which, owing to its divisions, was at that time weaker than it is now. Switzerland and the kingdom of the United Netherlands were created as buffer states. The neutrality secured to these was also promised in 1832 to the newly formed kingdom of Belgium. The value of this protection on both flanks of the western frontier of Germany does not depend solely upon the security of international agreement and the doubtful readiness of the guarantors to protect this neutrality by force of arms. The neutral states themselves have shown, by the measures of self-defence which they have undertaken, that they are not disposed to let themselves be involved without resistance in the quarrels of their neighbours. It remains, however, somewhat uncertain whether they would have resolution

The following extract from Chapter XX of Partsch's book on Central Europe was written in 1899, first appearing in English in 1903-in Appleton's World Series, The Regions of the World, edited by H. J. Mackinder. It is reprinted here because of especial interest in connection with the war in Europe.

Central Europe, as treated in masterly fashion by Partsch, includes Germany and Austria-Hungary, with Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland on the west and Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro on the southeast. Certain paragraphs referring to these smaller countries except Belgium and Netherlands are here omitted.

enough to throw their defensive power quickly and emphatically into the balance against the invader of their neutrality.

This is all the more doubtful, because the temptation not to respect neutral territory only arises when a strong militant power has already obtained considerable advantages and its superiority begins to be decisive. As long as both adversaries face each other in the fulness of their power, neither could venture, unpunished, to turn the flank of the other by crossing a narrow strip of neighbouring neutral country. But when the strength of the two parties begins to be unequal, the stronger may attempt by thus reaching across to hasten the final decision, and to protect itself against reverses. In any case, it is obvious that Germany could never have anything to gain by taking this course. Aix-la-Chapelle lies 264 miles distant from Paris and Metz 200 miles, and the way through the fortresses of the Sambre to Paris is not easier for a German attacking army than that by way of Verdun. Nor could a march through Switzerland give any greater advantage to German troops. Why should they expose themselves to the difficulties and dangers of crossing the Swiss Rhine country and the Jura, when beyond these great obstacles they would still find themselves confronted by the same French fortifications that directly touch German territory at the gate of Belfort? Nor could an alliance with Italy ever lead Germany into the error of taking an army to be useless in the blind alley of Switzerland, shut in by the Jura. It would be madness to purchase a co-operation with Italy on Swiss ground by an invasion of Switzerland, for an expedition north of the Alps would demand far greater powers than Italy could ever spare from her home defences.

With France the case is different. If the defensive power of Germany should be diminished along the Rhine, either by reverses or by the requirements of some war at a distance, France might hope, by advancing through Belgium, to enter Germany at the less protected northern end of the west frontier, to combine operations with its own navy, and in case of a simultaneous attack from Russia, to strike the severest blow at the enemy, who would lie between two hostile forces. Or if the German army of the Rhine were weakened and obliged to confine itself to defending the fortifications, the advance of a French army through North Switzerland into the heart of South Germany might be even more tempting. These are the possibilities which the neutral states have seriously to keep in mind in the preparations for the defence of their neutrality. The defensive preparations of Switzerland, at any rate, seem to be guided by quite other views, and to propose a resistance in the inmost parts of the territory. . . . The whole salvation of Switzerland would depend upon its making a firm stand for the complete inviolability of its territory.

While that country has natural defences against the foreign invader in its mountains, its rapid and abundant rivers, and its broad lakes, the natural position of Belgium is not so secure. Its territory is intersected by the mili

tary road along the Sambre and the Meuse that has been used in so many wars. In any conflict between the two adjoining powers, the shortest line between the objectives of the operations on both sides, Paris and Berlin, would pass along it, and would lead through rich highly cultivated country, offering relatively little natural hindrance. It is, therefore, of extreme importance that Belgium has not, like Switzerland, contented itself with preparing a refuge for its military power, as far as possible from the border, but has closed the line of the Meuse at the very frontier by the great fortified places of Liège and Namur, which bar the way against both Powers. The chief strength of Belgium would not, however, be stationed here, but would be collected in a great fortress lying aside from this line-Antwerp. This position offers the advantage of being protected on the south by the line of water formed by the union of the rivers Nethe, Rupel, and Scheldt. Beyond these rivers, the most important crossing-places of which are fortified, lies the circle, nine miles in diameter, of Antwerp's fourteen new forts, which have quite altered the character of an old fortified place that used to depend upon a ring of waters. The forts are especially strong towards the sea. It is obvious that the choice of this spot-which indeed is by nature well adapted for defence-has been in part decided by the hope of help from without. And indeed England's policy could never suffer any of the great Continental Powers to gain a firm foothold exactly opposite to the Thames, and, as Pitt expressed it, "to hold a pistol to England's breast."

The example of this strong fortification of the environs of Antwerp may have contributed to make Holland prepare its national defences with so much insight and caution. As in former centuries, the strength of Holland still lies in the great expanse of country that can be flooded. This protection is only lost in very severe winters, such as that of 1794-95. The "new water-line" from the Zuyder Zee to the Lek, protected by Utrecht and a number of smaller fortifications, is, together with its continuation to the junction of the Meuse and Waal, Holland's principal line of defence towards the east; while, on the south, rivers that widen into real arms of the sea forbid any hostile approach. Safely sheltered behind this protected belt of waters lies the principal fortress of the country, Amsterdam, surrounded by a wide ring of forts and a territory within its own power to inundate. The surrounding defences are completed by the fort of Ijmuiden at the entrance to the North Sea Canal, and by the forts around Helder, which close not only the entrance to the North Holland Canal but also that to the Zuyder Zee, and so prevent the passage towards Amsterdam of hostile ships or of materials for a siege.

The peaceful dispositions and the good state of defence of its three neighbours on the west are of great importance to Germany in the task of defending its 150 miles of frontier against France. The acquisitions of the last great war, which restored the losses of centuries, altered the conditions of national defence fundamentally and to the advantage of Germany. Whereas

the former frontier used to be the Rhine, which served to conceal the military preparations of France, and whereas the fortress of Strassburg used to be a direct menace to the safety of South Germany, the river, from Basle to the frontier of Holland, is now once more entirely in the hands of the Germans. If there were danger of war, the line of the Rhine would cover the strategic advance of the German forces. Between Basle and Mayence the river is crossed upon German territory by eleven railway bridges and sixteen pontoon bridges. Beyond the river, Upper Alsace is covered by the broad and wooded mountains of the Vosges; and where these mountains end, and the Saar basin is bordered by low hills, eight lines of railway run from the reach of the Rhine between Strassburg and Cologne towards the westward projection of the frontier of Lorraine. The newly acquired line of the Moselle is here protected by the mighty fortress of Metz, the new forts of which form a circle round the town five miles in diameter, and more to the north, close to the frontier of Luxemburg, by Diedenhofen. It would be between Metz and the northern end of the Vosges, as a glance at the railway map will show us, in front of the Saar and behind the Seille, that the main defending force of Germany would probably collect. Military writers consider the fields round Lunéville and Nancy as the probable scene of the first decisive action in any future war. Its result would decide whether an advance upon the first French line of defence, supported by the Upper Moselle and Meuse and by the great fortress of Epinal, Toul, and Verdun, were possible for the German army, or whether the French could open their advance upon the Rhine towards the great places of Strassburg and Mayence.

If the neutrality of Belgium were to be violated by France, Cologne would become the central point of defence, and in the course of the last twenty or thirty years nothing has been spared to bring its fortifications into the best and most modern condition; the importance of Wesel, too, has not been forgotten. If an advance should be made through the Gate of Belfort and North Switzerland towards the interior of South Germany, the French would indeed find, if they avoided the fortified places of Breisach and Istein, that the whole reach of the Rhine which lies between Germany and Switzerland, from Basle up to Constance, is unprotected; but the modernised fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt would oppose a barrier, and even under great difficulties would secure time for the German military leaders to collect sufficient forces on the Danube, or to carry out serious operations against the enemy's communications.

Any attack upon the western frontier of Germany would probably, in the present preponderance of the French navy, be accompanied by a threatening of the German coasts. The experiences of the last war should not lead to the underestimation of this danger. In the North Sea, the shallows impede the approach of hostile vessels. Nothing, however, has been left undone in the defences of the naval station of Wilhelmshaven, and of the mouths of