LAND AND WATEK September 5, 1914 
1. THE FACTOR OF NUMBERS. 
As was pointed out in ilic first of tlicpc articles, other things being equal, the deciding factor in 
a campaign is the factor of mnnbcrs- not necessarily of numbers as a Avhole, but of numbers at the 
decisive place and time. 
Now the first fact dominating all the others is this : The attack of the Gcnnan and Austrian 
Empires upon France has been made in far larger numbers than was expected by the French and tlicir 
Allies. That is the simple explanation of all that has hapjiencd hitheiio in the ^Vest. 
If we go by the elementary metliod of counting the adult males subject to the HohenzoUerns and 
the Ilapsburgs and contrasting them with the adult males citizens of the French Eepublic, we got a 
disproportion of roughly 13 to 4. It is, as a fact, rather more than 12 to rather less than 4 : it is 
almost exactly 121 to 30 : it is an overwhelming disproportion. 
I repeat : in military aft'aii-s, other things being equal, the deciding factor is numbers. It was so 
in the great eft'oi-t of the French Ilevolution. It was so in 1870. Those " other things " are nearly 
equal in the great modern conscript armies : training, equijjment, and the rest. Numbers should 
decide. 
If, then, the proportion of more than three to one had held, the result in the Western theatre of 
war would have been a foregone conclusion. It should not have taken three weeks. But there were, 
of course, a great number of most important qualifications to so crude a contrast. These modifications 
may be roughly but accm-ately summarised under fi.ve heads, which I place in order of their importance 
from least to most : 
(1) Not all, nor nearly all, of the adult male population of the two central Empires is 
trained to arms. This is of less and less value to the French as every day of the war passes, 
for the untrained men are being with CA'cry day digested more and more thoroughly into the 
trained mass. 
(2) One of the two Germanic monarchies, the Ilapsburgs, had to deal with a heterogeneous 
population, much of Avhich was ill disposed to the German spirit and to government by Gennan sjjeakiug 
men. Therefore, the numbers which Austria could lend to Germany for action against France, though 
large, was, in any case, A'cry much less than the mass of her forces. And this heterogeneous 
character of the llapsbui-g dominions further weakened Austria in a matter Avhich was the match that 
lighted the whole Avar — the Slavs, upon her southern boundary, Avho had escaped her control, and whom 
she had foolishly proposed to govern against their AviUs ; the Sernans. 
(;3) The French Army discovered, Avhen the crisis came, two influences in its favour- — the Belgian 
resistance and the English alliance. The unexpected and very valuable resistance of the Belgians who, 
thougli not possessed of an army trained on the same lines as the great conscript annies, though able 
to put immediately into the field but a very small jjrojjortion of then,- total adult males, and those, in 
part, militia, determined a delay of at least tweh-e days in the jilans of the German General Staff. It 
is not exaggerated but sober language to say that the sacrifice of Belgium promises the redemption of 
Europe. It Avill not count less but more as time goes on. 
Far more important, in the military sense, Avas the final decision of the British Government to 
sujiport the French. That decision effected two things. It gave to France a small but veiy valuable 
accretion of troops, six per cent, of all forces, not quite ten per cent, to the total of the first line, bufc 
more than 10 per cent, of the total in the area wliere the chief bloAV fell, and the British contmgeut 
thus afforded Avas not only of most excellent military character, but, what is OA^en more valuable, 
rmder-estinuited by the Germans. Few things a^re Avorth more in Avar than an under-estimate on the 
pait of your enemy, cither of the numbers or of the quality of the troops he is going to meet at any 
particular point. 
Of fui-ther and still greater importance to the French Avas the opening of the sea to them by tlic 
British Fleet. So long as the sea remains open to the one group of enemies and closed to the other, 
so long there is necessarily a sloAvly increasing strain ujjon the one and a permanent source of suj^ply 
ojxm to the otlier. 
(4) The plan of attack long designed and openly described by the German Powers Avas one in 
Avliich CAxrything had to be done at once and in the first stages of the campaign. There A^as no 
ari-angcment in fortification or in strategy for dela}'. There Avill prove to be little arrangement for 
retu'cment. 
It will be asked Avliy this last feature can be counted as a modification of the enormous numerical 
preponderance against the French. The ansAvcr is that though it does not affect that preponderance at 
the beginning of the Avar, though, on the contrary, it is actually due to the presence of such a 
preponderance -the rush sj'stem Avas only designed because those Avho designed it counted on superior 
numbers — yet if it is checked it modifies the value of numbers in tv/o Avays. First, the checks, partial 
iuid temporary though they be, involve enormous losses quite out of proportion to the losses of the 
defence ; second, they bring the front of the defence more and more parallel to the German lines of 
communication. That is, until the defending line is outflanked or pierced the offeu-ive opposed to it 
goes on into a more and more perilous position Avitli a les ■ and less chance, u/iless it succeeds, of securing 
its line of supj^l}- against a counter attack. 
(5) Finally, the most important modification, Aviiich everybody has noticed, is that in the long 
run the immense numbers of Eussia will begin to tell. Wlien or if they are telling Avitli all their 
i'oi-ce, the numerical preponderance Avhich was so enonnous at the beginning of the campaign Avill 
gi-adually turn to its opposite. The German PoAvers AviU be putting not a little more than 12 men 
i'.gainst somcAvhat less than 4 men, but a little more than 12 (even if they had had no losses) to a good 
deal over 10 or 17. Already, from the presence of Eussian armies over the Eastern frontiers, the 
l)ropoiiion of German and Austrian troops to French Avest of the Khine can hardly be more than 
7 to 1, and is jjcrha^js by this liine as low as to 4. Aivl the groat main business of the AUics is, 
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