CTanuary 2, 1915, 
LAND AND WATER 
invasion of German soil which, let us always re- 
memher, it is politically essential for the German 
rulers to prevent, would have taken place. 
No; the more one looks at the problem, the 
more convinced one is that the enemy will hold on 
to his present lines in the West as long as it is just 
compatible with his strength to do so, and possibly 
a trifle longer. 
This would seem to be the whole value of that 
now persistent Allied pressure upon the immense 
stretch of trenches from Westende to the Swiss 
frontier : the certainty that the enemy will try to 
hold those trenches up to and beyond the safety 
point. It is the fervent hope of every Commander 
of the Allied forces who is watching the struggle 
that political considerations, which are already 
hampering German strategy, will pin the enemy 
just too long to his present line ; and that is why 
that line must be kept occupied, sawn yard by 
yard, frayed and frittered away by the persistent 
effort which has been patiently watched in the 
Western campaign throughout now nearly three 
months. 
But here the reader may well ask by what 
right the French and British Commanders are at- 
tacking and thus discounting an increasing 
strength upon their side and a correspondingly 
increasing weakness upon the enemy's side along 
the line which he now just barely holds ? 
Is it not true that the Germanic Powers be- 
tween them can put in arms more than three times 
as many men of military age as can the French ? 
Is it not true that the British contingent at this 
moment adds not one-tenth to the French line? 
And is it not true that, even when the present full 
Dumber of British volunteers are trained, equipped, 
officered, gunned and sent out, they will have 
added but 30 per cent, to that line ? 
All this is true; but it is nevertheless also 
true that, so long as the war remains active in 
Poland, the Western Allies may confidently ex- 
pect that gradual diminution, both in the mechani- 
cal weight of armament, and in the proportionate 
numbers, of the enemy, which will compel either 
Lis disaster upon the existing lines, or his retire- 
ment to a much shorter one. 
This they can predict from the following 
three converging factors in the case : — 
(1) Superiority in equipment passes with time 
from the German to the Allied side. 
(2) Wastage is very much more rapid upon 
the German than upon the Allied side. 
(3) The Occupation of the Enemy upon his 
other, or Eastern, front, must, as things have 
turned out since the second battle for Warsaw was 
engaged, increase for some time to come. 
I will take these three factors in their order. 
I. Equipment. — The war prepared by Ger- 
many and forced at her own moment by Germany, 
found Germany more ready than her enemies in 
the West on several points. She was not more 
ready in military science and temper ; her strate- 
gic theory has been proved, indeed, inferior to that 
of the French, and she has made no successful 
assault, save with vastly superior numbers, but 
many an unsuccessful one with them. But she 
had a much larger stock of weapons and ammuni- 
tion for the successive equipment of reserves, and 
her doctrine of heavy artillery, which has proved 
sound enough, had provided her at the outset of 
hostilities with an immense numerical superiority 
in this arm. 
But the provision of equipment is, for the 
Allies, only a question of time. The blockade of 
Germany, though but partial, is already felt in 
certain essentials in equipment; and in the par- 
ticular case of heavy guns, once the plant is ready, 
it can be calculated to a few days what space of 
time will give the English and the French shops 
a numerical superiority of output. The rapidity 
with which large ammunition can be turned out 
in the West is again much greater than in the Ger- 
manics. England, in particular, has a much 
larger population free from the necessity of ap- 
pearing in the field, and both France and England 
receive in larger quantities than they can use the 
materials for the manufacture of all that is neces- 
sary to modern war. Already some slight supe- 
riority in the heavy artillery work is apparent 
throughout the Western lines upon the side of the 
Allies, and every day that passes increases this. 
II. Wastage. — In the point of wastage, we 
have further statistics which were not available 
when earlier estimates were made in these pages. 
It is true that the French have not yet given us the 
number of German prisoners whom they hold, but 
the Russian figures have been communicated, and 
the French Ministry has openly published the 
number of French wounded, from which we may 
fairly estimate the general statistics of casualties. 
I hope to go into these figures more precisely in a 
later article. I deal with them here only in round 
numbers. 
{a) Prisoners. — The first thing we note in 
these figures is that the Russians before the recent 
action in Poland, counted over 130,000 German 
(exclusive of much more numerous Austrian) 
prisoners. It is safe to say that the total number 
of wastage from this source. East and West, is not 
short of a quarter of a million at the present 
moment. One German estimate (unofficial it is 
true) gives the German "missing" at 400,000. 
But these may include many unaccounted dead. 
Also a quarter of a million is quite likely too low 
an estimate for the total number of German 
prisoners. But at least a-quarter of a million 
there are. 
That figure — a-quarter of a million — by itself 
means little in the problem of the enemy's com- 
parative wastage. Of French and Russian 
prisoners combined the Germans could produce an 
even larger number ; a number perhaps a third as 
large again or more : but let us interpret its full 
meaning. 
Let two very important things be remem- 
bered : First, that the great bulk of French and 
Russian prisoners taken by the Germans were 
taken in the earlier phases of the war more than 
three months ago. The rate of wastage from this 
source is now greater on the German than on the 
Allied side. 
Next, let it be noted that all the German 
prisoners in French and Russian hands are true 
efl^ective soldiers. 
The Germans count in their statistics those 
masses of civilian population which they have 
seized under their peculiar system of war and car- 
ried away into captivity. There are villages in 
French Lorraine where none of the old men are 
left, and of the males no one but the chil- 
dren under sixteen. 
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