LAND AND WATEE 
Noven»"bcr 14, 1914 
Tlie nearest point wliicli the enemy seems to have 
seized in this converging attack upon Ypres is ihe 
little village in the belt of woods marked upon the 
accompanying map of tlic neighbourhood of Ypres, 
Klein Zillcbeke. But from this village he has been 
driven out again. The line, roughly speaking, 
is now one with a radius of about 4 miles fi'om 
Ypres, and the battle still presents the successive 
features with which we are so familiar 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 from the vast accumulation of 
force which the enemy made for it, we can be quite 
certain that his loss was far superior to ours. 
Beyond the approximate trace of the allied line 
contained in these notes, there is nothing 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 
fuiiher 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 from west to 
cast by the Germans 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 ])erfectly possible and even probable that, 
"when the Kussian pressure was found to be moie 
severe than had been anticip<ated, 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 
troojos from west to east, a change in the plan of 
bringing overwhelming forces to the west (a plan 
made only a Aveek 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 camj)aign. 
The fii-st is the question of German supply and of the 
effect on it of British sea-power, the second the German 
statement of our losses by caj^ture. 
THE QUESTION OF GERMAN 
SUPPLY. 
It is obvious that the chief effect of British sea- 
power in tliis war and its chief advantage to the Allies 
has been the virtual blockade it has established against 
the enemy. That blockade is not absolute, because 
there are neutral countries through which, though 
with difliculty, the encmj' can receive supplies. But 
Avhen the amount of these supplies becomes abnormal — 
that is wlicn the neutral country is importing obviously 
far more than it can possibly want for itself — suspicion 
on the part of the blockaders is sufliciently 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 eff\^ct in 
preventing tJie export of military necessities from 
jidjaccut 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 will fall: (1) material 
directly required for war, (2) material only indirectly 
necessary 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 
gi'eat nonsense. If anything the French explo.sives 
have a superiority, and this is worth remembering 
when we consider that 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 llin. But to return to supply. 
The small amount of copper («) required for 
shells can probably continue to be smuggled in. It 
is true that the total amount available from ore in the 
enemy's o\vn teiTitory 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 modern rifled 
cannon. 
Food and fabric Gemaany 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 {d) petrol, (/) horses, and (c) rubber, 
the case is different. Let us take them separately. 
The supply of //orses for German armament 
depended to some extent upon perpetual purchase in 
France and the British Isles — notably Ireland. 
Nothing is wasted more la\'ishly in war than horse- 
flesh. Nothing can replace horseflesh for traction, 
however much competent critics may quarrel as to the 
role of cavalry. Petrol will replace traction upon 
good roads, but you cannot handle an anny, and 
esjjecially its lighter artillery, without a constant 
supply of horses. Nor will the most convinced critic 
of modern 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. Gei-many certainly cannot. 
Eussia will not ; France and England will not ; nor 
\s ill they be imported. The Germans happen to have 
been particularly 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. 
