LAND AND WATEE 
November 14, 1914 
The nearest point which tlie enemy seems to have 
seized in this converging attack npon Yprcs is the 
little village in the belt of woods marked upon the 
accompanjdng map of the neighbourhood of Ypres, 
Klein Zillebeke. But from this village he has been 
driven out again. The line, roughly speaking, 
is now one with a radius of about 4 mUes from 
Ypres, and the battle still presents the successive 
features with whicli we ai-e so farailiiir upon this 
front — of a violent attack by the enemy in numbers 
greatly superior to the local defences, of his initial 
success over a belt of from 5 to 3 miles, and then of the 
pinning of him — after losses anything between two 
and three times our own. Not that the Allied losses 
in this field have not been exceedingly heavy — all the 
official communiques insist upon that. But, from the 
nature of the attack and fi'om the vast accumulation of 
force which the enemy made for it, we can be quite 
certain that his loss was far superior to oui-s. 
Beyond the approximate trace of the allied line 
contained in these notes, there is notliing to be said 
upon the Western field of war at the moment of 
writing — save that the great concentration of men 
which the enemy were reported to be making for a 
further attack in Flanders has apparently been halted 
by news from the eastern field of war. 
There has been so much wild talk about the 
movement of men from east to west and firom west to 
east by the Gei-mans that one hesitates to believe any 
of it ; but in this case, not only is the evidence fairly 
good, or at any rate voluminous, but there is for once 
a probability in favour of what is alleged. 
It is perfectly possible and even probable that, 
when the Eussian pressure was found to be more 
severe than had been anticipated, and when, 
apparently, it was no longer thought possible to 
hold the line of the Warta, the Germans felt a real 
danger in that field menacing the two cardinal points 
of their military policy — the keeping of the war off 
German soil and the saving of the industrial districts. 
And it is, therefore, credible that a movement of 
troops from west to east, a change in the plan of 
bringing overwhelming forces to the west (a plan 
made only a week ago), has taken place ; in which 
case we have yet another confirmation of the general 
truth that the deciding factor of the whole European 
campaign is still to be found in Poland. 
I would conclude with two notes on subjects 
equally important to a just estimate of the campaign. 
The first is the question of Gennan supply and of the 
effect on it of British sea-power, the second the German 
statement of our losses by capture. 
THE QUESTION OF GERMAN 
SUPPLY. 
It is obvious that the chief effect of British sea- 
power in this war and its chief advantage to the AUies 
has been the viiiual blockade it has established against 
the enemy. That blockade is not absolute, because 
there are neutral countries through which, though 
with difiiculty, the enemy can receive supplies. But 
when the amount of these supplies becomes abnormal — 
that is when the neutral country is importing obviously 
far more than it can possibly want for itself — suspicion 
on the pai-t of the blockaders is sufficiently strong to 
warrant very strict search, and even to interfere with 
such supply. It is this conclusion, for instance, which 
has led to the closing of the North Sea. 
On the other hand, no sea blockade is of effect in 
preventing the export of military necessities from 
adjacent neutral countries into the enemy's territory, 
when these products are to be discovered in the 
neutral countries themselves. 
Let us consider what it is that Germany most 
needs m the way of foreign supply, and discover how 
far the blockade affects her. 
There are obviously two great categories into 
which supply from abroad wiU fall: (1) material 
du-ectly required for war, (2) material only indirectly 
necessaiy for a nation at war. 
I. — Under (1) we have : — ■ 
(a) Copper. 
(b) Petrol. 
(c) Eubber. 
(d) Certain chemicals necessary for 
the manufacture of high ex- 
plosives — notably nitrates. 
(e) A certain proportion of food and 
of fabrics for the feeding and 
clothing of the troops. 
(f) Horses. 
Now of these six, only three, (b) (c) and (f), are 
appreciably affected by the blockade. The chemicals 
(d), which the enemy needs for his high explosives, the 
nitrates, he can obtain from the great works in Norway 
(German owned), and from his own works. Nitrogen 
is universal. 
And here by the way it is worth remarking that 
the talk about the Germans having some special new 
explosive, more powerful than that of the French, is 
great nonsense. If anything the French explosives 
have a superiority, and this is woiih remembering 
when we consider tliat most of the work done against 
permanent fortifications by the Germans has not been 
done with howitzers over Sin. calibre, and the largest 
of those which have done any prolonged and effective 
work have been the 11 in. But to return to supply. 
The small amount of copper (a) required for 
shells can probably continue to be smuggled in. It 
is true that the total amount available from ore in the 
enemy's own territory and in adjacent neutral countries 
(such as Sweden) is not 15 per cent, of the normal 
supply necessary to German industry, but it is ample 
for the mere manufacture of those bands which 
are a necessity to projectiles used in modem rifled 
cannon. 
Food and fabric Germany can certainly discover 
— or rather, Germany and Austria combined — so long 
as German territory/ itself is intact. That last phrase 
is of course essential. 
But with {b) petrol, (/) horses, and (c) rubber, 
the case is different. Let us take them separately. 
The supply of Jiorses for German armament 
depended to some extent upon perpetual purchase in 
France and the British Isles— notably Ireland. 
Nothing is wasted more lavishly in war than horse- 
flesh. Nothing can replace horseflesh for traction, 
however much competent critics may quarrel as to the 
r61e of cavalry. Petrol will replace traction upon, 
good roads, but you cannot handle an army, and 
especially its lighter artilleiy, without a constant 
supply of horses. Nor will the most convinced critic 
of modem cavalry deny its role altogether, especially 
in the later stages of the war. Now it is true that, of 
the two Allies, Austria can provide some reserve of 
horses, but not enough. Geraiany certainly cannot. 
Eussia wiU not ; France and England will not ; nor 
will they be imported. The Germans happen to have 
been pai-ticularly lavish in their expenditure of horse- 
flesh in the first months of the war; and it is as 
certain as anything can be that the shortage in horses 
is already felt, and will very soon be severely felt, 
by the enemy. 
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