IF PARIS SHOULD FALL, WHAT THEN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1113, 10 March 1871, Page 2

IF PARIS SHOULD FALL, WHAT THEN.

The Times holds that if Paris should succumb, the whole aspect of the war would be altered, and it would be to little purpose for Chancy to come on from Le Mans or Faidher be from Arras, to little purpose that Bourbaki should " effect his j auction with Bremer and annihilate Yon Werder." Masters of Paris, the Germans could easily take the field with half a million of men, and it is questionable whether France could muster a force even numerically able to cope with them. In the opinion of many persons the surrender of Paris would not bring with it the end of the war, and sanguine people assert that it would only be the signal for its real commencement. The Times attaches so great an importance to the result of the siege of Paris and to the chances of any relief being brought to the invested city by the provincial armies, that the question, " What next 1" seems to it hardly worth attending to. But supposing that, after the fall of Paris, the Germans renounced the thought of any further enterprise1? Two are required to make war as well as to make peace. The Germans hold in their hands what they, wisely or improviclently claim as the prize of victory. They might fall back upon their new acquisitions, and if needful, occujjy another province as a pledge to be redeemed by the French on the acceptance of the conqueroi's conditions. .Relieved from Ihe presence of the enemy, France, of course, could renew the contest, but it is questionable whether the proud and revengeful feeling which now, in the heat of the struggle, still animates her, would survive the exhaustion sure to set in if she were left on the ground bleeding from every wound, and stunned by repeated blows. One war like that of 1870 in a quarter of a century ought to be enough even for the brave spirit and for the vast re-!" sources of France; and any second war, to be undertaken at the close of the present conflict, would have to encounter the increased confidence engendered by victory among the Germans, their strengthened national oiganisation, and their double frontier line. On these grounds, the Times says, we would rather not carry our speculations beyond the positions immediately before us. Paris is the great card; with it the game must be lost or won.