46 The Great War Germans. The possibility that the British army might be landed in Belgium and come up on the flank and rear was reckoned with, but held unlikely to influence the result of the campaign owing to in- evitable delays. Before England could move, while France was still mobilizing and concentrating her efforts on the Alsace-Lorraine frontier, the German offensive was calculated to penetrate into the heart of France on an unguarded frontier, to compel the retreat of the armies facing Lorraine and to cripple France so utterly that Germany could turn and deal with Rus- sia subsequently. Such, briefly, was the German offensive, as it had been forecast by military writers. The first steps of the Germans wholly confirmed the predictions of these writers. The seizure of Luxemburg, the in- vasion of Belgium were almost unmistakable indi- cations that Germany was coming south not by the way of her own frontiers but through the neutral States to the west. Success for such a tremendous strategical venture must patently exercise a considerable if not a de- cisive influence upon the land operations of the war. But it brought in new risks, almost infallibly insured British participation. For the Germans, however, it became hourly plainer that no risk could counter- balance the solid advantage discoverable in posses- sion of the Belgian gate to France.