The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-01 00:00:00

OUR COTEME'OR.ARIES---This Morning.

PLAN OF TILE CA!UPAIGI

It becomes daily more probable, in the opinion of the.
Times, that the French plan of campai_pi consisted of an
attack on the Prussian frontier of the Saar. and on the
Bavarian Palatinate froni Forbad', Sarreguemines, and
Bitche, against the Prussian lines at Saaibrock, Zwci-
brueken, and Pinnasens, with a view to force their way.:
to Neucnkirchen, and hence along the two railway lines
which branch out In m that junction, the one
through St. Wendel and Birkenfeld to Kreutznach and
Bingen, the other by Homburg, Kaiserlautern, and
Neustadt to the Rhine at Spires, at Worms, or'ijt Lud-
wigshafen, opposite to Mannheim. Such was supposed
to be the plan of attack of the French; such it is still be-
lieved 1,0 be ; and it was thought with some reason that
the Prussians, aware of the advantages the French had -
at these points, owing to the proximity of their base of
operations at Mctz and Strasburg, did not intend to offer
any serious resistance to- flair enemies' advance. The
supposition is so far borne out that they have certainly
fallen back from Treves, the old city of the Three Kings,
which is the only point on the frontier without railway
communication with the Rhine. But the Prussians,
though their main force is concentrated, on the
Rhine, . are still holding their ground all along
their more advanced line on the Saar, and have
even overstepped their boundaries in various encounters.
Were the French firmly bent on following the line of
attack we have described, and had the Irussians made up
their minds to fall back before them to their second line
on the Rhine at Mayence and Coblentz, it would by no
means follow that the invaders wouid have a very easy
march. The districts between the Moselle and the Rhine,
whatever charms they may have for the tourist, ss
presenting spots of unsurpassed beauty, are by no means
favourable to military operationson so large a scale as the
vastness of modern armies necessitates. Forest-clad
bluffs, deep ravines, bare plateaux, and scarped rocks
crowned with castles and hamlets diversify the landscape
at every step, while the lower hills and valleys, all laid
out in well-enclosed vineyards and gardens, allow hardly
any opening to an invading army except by the main
roads.

BISMARCK AND BENEDETTI.

The Post considers that MM. Bismarck and Benedetti
must have prayed hard against each other. "Not to be
led into temptation " was the petition of the German,
while the Frenchman earnestly sought "to be delivered
from evil." Both echo now the final wish
of the religious American in presence of the "grisly
bear" —" If you won't help neither of us,
" stand aside, for there's goin' to be a tarnation fight."
The secrets of 1866, which are now so piously revealed
as justifying the intense scruples of either side, were no
secpt in 1866, and to the Corps Diplomatique,,at that time
resident in Berlin it was well known that poinparlem had
taken place between the Prussian Minister and the
French Envoy, in which the latter sought compensation
for German aggrandisement, while the former
offered every other territory except his own as'
satisfaction for the Frenchman's claim. Count Bismarck
avers that he " held it useful, in the interests of peace, to
permit the French statesman to hold these illusions pecu-
liar to theta ;" and M. Benedetti avers that hi order to
arrive at a comprehension of the Prussian Premier's
designs he set to work to draft, "so to say,
at his dictation," the now famous Projet de Traiti?.
Bismarck seized it "to show to the King." Bene-
dtti reported it to the Emperor. Napoleon rejected it,
and King William refused to entertain it. Of the two
diplomatists, M. Benedetti comes off worst. He placed
himself in a thoroughly false position, and must take the
consequences. M. 011ivier describes the project as odious.
A less gushing statesman might despise it as imprac-
ticable.