Still, it is not
likely that the system will be speedily renounced; for a great truth has
been demonstrated by Napoleon's wars,--viz.: that remoteness is not a
certain safeguard against invasion,--that a state to be secure must have
a good system of fortresses and lines of defense, of reserves and
military institutions, and, finally, a good system of government. Then
the people may everywhere be organized as militia, and may serve as
reserves to the active armies, which will render the latter more
formidable; and the greater the strength of the armies the more
necessary is the system of rapid operations and prompt results.
If, in time, social order assumes a calmer state,--if nations, instead
of fighting for their existence, fight only for their interests, to
acquire a natural frontier or to maintain the political
equilibrium,--then a new right of nations may be agreed upon, and
perhaps it will be possible to have armies on a less extensive scale.
Then also we may see armies of from eighty to one hundred thousand men
return to a mixed system of war,--a mean between the rapid incursions of
Napoleon and the slow system of positions of the last century.
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