Only by calling up his last reserves did victory declare for Maurice.
Thus the number of men maintained under arms (without calling up the reserves) is as high as 75,000 during certain periods of the year and averages nearly 60,000.
The field army on a war footing, without depot troops, garrison troops and reservists, would be about 50,000 strong, but by constituting new cadres at the outbreak of war and calling up the reserves it could be more than doubled, and as a matter of fact nearly 120,000 men were with the colours in the manoeuvre season in 1907.
Almost frantically, like a shipwrecked sailor calling up a bottled genie, Geller strokes the fork, waiting for the miraculous to happen.
