But by marching through Belgium with a strong right wing (the Schlieffen plan), the Germans circumvented the powerful French fortresses.
He had rivals for the office, but none could match the support he received from the combined forces of the party's strong right wing, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church), and the influential Broederbond, a secret Afrikaner society.
The Army of the Lower Rhine had a 20,000-strong right wing under Duke Ferdinand Frederick Augustus of Württemberg on the east bank observing the French bridgehead at Düsseldorf.
The legislature, though, had a strong right-wing, royalist majority.
The failure may have been a blessing in disguise, because the leading candidate was a strong right-wing nationalist.
His 100-year-old father, Benzion Netanyahu, a scholar of the Spanish Inquisition, is a strong right-wing advocate, as is the prime minister's wife, Sara.
The Cabinet makeup means Mr. Sharon will have close allies in most top posts, though his coalition consists of four parties, with a strong right-wing bent.
By pushing the decision through over strong right-wing opposition, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon struck a new conciliatory chord: "It's not right for Israel to rule over 3.5 million Palestinians," he declared.
In fact, he has just expanded his fund-raising, starting an aggressive telephone solicitation campaign that warns of "strong right-wing opposition" to his re-election three years hence.
Most analysts view the talks as pairing the unwilling with the unable — a strong right-wing Israeli coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with no desire to reach an agreement against a relatively moderate Palestinian leadership that is too weak and divided to do so.
In his memoirs Mr Major calls Mr Duncan Smith fiercely ambitious, a busy operator behind the scenes, "sharp-toothed and bright-eyed, with a keen prosecuting intellect and a strong right-wing ideology".For well over a year, Mr Duncan Smith has been operating busily behind the scenes to spike the government's plans for Europe's rapid reaction force.
