THE RUSSIAN SITUATION 



381 



THE PRUSSIAN CAPACITY EOR SACRIFICE 



With this idea dominant in the Ger- 

 man mind, and probably now accepted as 

 a truth even by the Kaiser himself, who 

 has come to believe implicitly in his own 

 statements, the fallacies of which his 

 lack of imagination has made him inca- 

 pable of seeing, there has been produced 

 in Germany a national fortitude and a 

 capacity for sacrifice rarely equaled and 

 never surpassed in the history of the 

 world. 



Having spent in the achievement of 

 what they regard as their national de- 

 fensive aims four and one-half million 

 casualties gross, we need not imagine 

 that the loss of a few hundred thousand 

 in the west is going to exert any funda- 

 mental or far-reaching influence on the 

 German ultimate capacity of resistance. 



I believe it to be an absolute truth that 

 if America prepares for war with the 

 idea that this conflict is to last for three 

 years we may expect the end of the war 

 before 1918; but if we elect to make the 

 same psychological mistake that the other 

 Powers have made and cling to the belief 

 that the war is almost over, and prepare 

 in the belief that the Germans will be ex- 

 hausted this year, it is perfectly possible 

 that the war may last for another two 

 years. 



HOW WE MAY PROEONG THE WAR 



If we raise a trifling army of half a 

 million to a million men, it is quite possi- 

 ble that before this war is over we may 

 suffer a million casualties on the western 

 front alone; wdiereas if we accept the 

 necessity of sacrifice and prepare our- 

 selves as we would do were we fighting 

 Germany alone and for our national ex- 

 istence, and formulate plans for a three- 

 years war, involving ultimate capacity to 

 deliver on various European fronts five 

 million men, fully equipped and trained, 

 it is my opinion that, with the possible 

 exception of an expeditionary force for 

 moral effect on the situation, none would 

 ever reach a European front. 



It must be realized at this time that a 

 dominant feature in the world has be- 

 come the visible supply of man power. 

 The German staff has carefully analyzed 

 the European situation, has reckoned with 

 this visible supply in Russia, France, and 



England, and has, to its own satisfaction, 

 reached the conclusion that Germany has 

 a sporting chance of outliving her ene- 

 mies in this competition of death. The 

 staff has not, at any time, I am certain, 

 included in its figures the possibility of 

 five million Americans being potentially 

 available to fill the losses of the Allies in 

 1918, 1919, and possibly 1920. 



A WHEAT MARKET ANALOGY 



In this matter of the visible supply of 

 human material I see a direct analogy in 

 the wheat market. If a Chicago operator 

 contemplates a corner in May or July 

 wheat and learns many months before 

 that the acreage in Argentina is to be 

 increased 200 per cent, his plans are af- 

 fected and defeated, not when this wheat 

 really comes on the Chicago market, but 

 when he receives information of the con- 

 templated acreage in distant fields of pro- 

 duction. 



Thus the price of wheat in other rul- 

 ing markets is affected even before a seed 

 is planted. And so, I believe, it is with 

 this military situation. If our plans con- 

 template the raising of an army of five 

 million men within a certain period, the 

 Germans feel the military and moral ef- 

 fect before we have enlisted the men ; 

 for it means that a staff already des- 

 perately pressed to provide men for this 

 year's campaign must extend its vision to 

 contemplate the possibility of raising in 

 1 91 8, for delivery at the same time and 

 place, approximately an equivalent num- 

 ber of troops as contemplated in our mili- 

 tary program. 



THIS YEAR OR NEVER WITH THE GERMANS 



The realization of this potential situ- 

 ation must convince the enemy that what 

 they cannot accomplish during this sum- 

 mer they can never accomplish, and the 

 necessity of peace late in the fall or early 

 winter must be apparent to even the 

 frozen imagination of the German people. 

 It is for this reason that I believe our 

 second fundamental duty is the adoption 

 of a military program on the basis of 

 three years of war. 



The third fundamental and, in my 

 opinion, the most necessary action which 

 this country should take is that which our 

 President and government are already 



