90 The Great War allies, had the advantage of numbers. Of twenty- five German army corps not less than three were on the Russian frontier, and probably one more. France had twenty-one corps, and the reenforcement of her allies meant English and Belgian troops to the value of at least five corps. She could thus, with the British and Belgian corps, place in Belgium enough troops to oppose man for man to the Ger- mans, and still establish a two to one advantage in numbers in Alsace-Lorraine, such as could only be counterbalanced by Austrian reenforce- ments. It was fair, then, to insist at this time that the French counter-offensive was at least as serious a military move as the German advance in Belgium. It, too, met with quite as complete preliminary suc- cess and cleared the way from Lunevllle, Epinal and Belfort to the east toward the Rhine and nearly to the Strassburg defences. It was the obvious conception of the French General Staff that coincident with a successful arrival of the German advance from Belgium at the frontier of France the French counter-offensive would be pushed out Into Germany beyond Alsace-Lorraine and exercise a pressure which would compel the German General Staff to weaken the great army operating toward Paris via Brussels. It Is probable also that French strategy also contemplated a gradual with- drawal before the German offensive which would