"They're sure to. We'll hold Liege with a small force as long as we can. But you must remember that they can send a million men against us! We're not supposed to beat them—no one expects us to do that. All we have to do is to hold them back as long as possible."
"But if there are so many of them, why can't they go right around us here?"
"They can, and they probably will. But even so, they'll have to account for the fortress of Liege and of Namur, as well, before they can get so very far."
"That's what I don't quite understand," said Arthur. "It seems to me that unless we have soldiers enough here to stop them they could go right on without bothering about Liege at all."
"You haven't studied strategy yet, I can see, my scout!" said the officer, with a laugh. "But I'll try to explain. You see, the Germans want to reach France—to conquer the French army and capture Paris, as they did in 1870. Then they went right through Alsace and Lorraine—beat the French around Metz, locked up the beaten army in that fortress, beat the only other army France had and captured it at Sedan, and then walked right through to Paris."
"Yes, I've read of that," said Arthur. "They didn't go through Belgium then, either."
"They didn't have to. But since then, you see, the French have learned their lesson. They've got the most powerful fortified line in the world, I suppose, all the way from Belfort to Verdun. It would take the Germans weeks to break through there, and by that time the whole French army would be mobilized behind that line of fortresses, and ready for them. If they were only fighting France they might try it. But now they've got to fight France and Russia too. And the only chance they have is to beat France even more quickly than they did in 1870. I happen to know that their plans require them to capture Paris within six weeks."
"Six weeks! Do you think they can do it?"
"No! Not if we do our part! And if they don't, they're likely to fail altogether. Because then Russia will have had time to mobilize, and more than half of the German army will have to help the Austrians to hold back the Russians from Vienna and Berlin. What they're counting on, you see, is smashing France, so that they can hold only a few corps back on this side, and throw all the rest of their army against Russia. Then they'd have a chance—more than a chance."
"But still I don't understand about Liege yet, and why it's so important," said Arthur.