France and Germany. By Victor Meynier. (Swan Sonnen- schein and
Co. 2s.)—M. Meynier puts together here a record of German interferences with France during the period between the Peace of Frankfort (1871) and the Conference of Algeciras (1906). As long as Prince Bismarck was in power there was a more or less audible "rattling of the sabre." The most conspicuous instance was in 1875, when, iv propos of a reorganisation of the French Army, Moltke said : " A new war is only a question of time Allow eighteen months to elapse and you will see the French frontier bristling with armaments containing an artillery equal, or perhaps superior, to our own." The Germans, said Moltke, were to invade France, occupy the high land near Paris, impose on France a contribution of four hundred millions, permanently limit her Army, and takeaway the region of Belfort. After Bismarck's fall came a time of peace ; now the era of provocation seems to have begun again. We must protest, by the way, against M.Meynier's assertion that "it is now historically known that in the French Revolution each of the reprisals in Paris "—the September massacres, for instance—" was s direct answer to the machinations of the Court."
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