LAND AND WATER 
January 9, 1915. 
proper, including the Poles, count but 14 million 
adult males of military age ; while Russia proper, 
excluding Poles, has available (according to the 
same statistics) only about 12-13 million of adult 
males of military age. There are, of course, very 
large sections of the population other than Slavs 
upon which Russia draws impartially for her con- 
scripts, but I give these figures to explain in some 
part the discrepancy between the apparent and 
the real resources of the Russian State in war. 
Next, apart from this heterogeneous charac- 
ter, it must be clearly appreciated that economic 
necessity forbade Russia to train more than a cer 
and the re-organisation of the Russian forces has 
been so recent, that the later contingents are much 
larger than the early ones. In other words, the 
proportion of older trained men is smaller than in 
other armies. That this has its advantages as well 
as its disadvantages we shall see later. Let us 
for the moment fix in our minds that number, five 
million. 
Now how much are we to add to that five 
million to give what I have called " the potential " ? 
Here one is necessarily vague, just because 
there is this very large mass of untrained reserve 
(of very varying quality and even of varying races). 
tain number of men, or to provide equipment for and also because the number that you can find for 
them or officers for them. The number so trained 
was very large, but less by far in proportion to her 
total population than was the case in any other of 
the great conscript countries. It may be urged, 
indeed, that this left a vast quantity of untrained 
material by way of reserve, and that is true ; but 
you cannot make an army from such sources 
alone. An army also needs guns and the 
whole framework of regimental officers and staffs. 
your potential is limited by the moral possibility 
of ofiicering them and training them. I suggest 
as a maximum one man in such a potential reserve 
for each man who has had some training. That 
maximum will, of course, never be reached in any- 
thing save quite unexpected length of war, stretch- 
ing over many, many years. But let us take it 
as a maximum upon which to work the rest of our 
calculation. Then if Russia has five million 
is certainly not more. 
We can now set down in tabular form 
following list of " potentials " in millions : — 
the 
and that preponderating factor of equipment which trained nien, we may call her " potential " 10. It 
cannot be improvised. ' " 
It is true that after an indefinite delay this 
great absolute superiority of numbers would begin 
to tell, but it would not begin to tell in the first 
year of a war, and hardly in the first two years. 
It would tell very heavily in a struggle prolonged 
as were, for instance, the Revolutionary and 
Napoleonic wars. 
We must not, then, think of Russia for one 
moment as we think of France or of Germany : a 
single homogeneous nation occupying a compara- 
tively restricted and highly developed area, organ- 
ised under one comparatively simple military sys- 
AlUes. 
Great Britain 
France 
Russia 
3 
7 
10 
Total 
Enemy. 
Grermany . . 
Austria .. 
Total 
III. 
20 
-ACTUALITIES. 
12 
9 
21 
These potential figures do not, of course, re- 
present actualities. They are maxima, and 
tern which works exactly with the civil administra- maxima altogether superior to what will really 
tion. We must think of Russia for what she is, be raised — save, perhaps, in one case — in the full 
an Empire. She is an Empire, the development of year. Let us proceed, then, as the last stage in 
which is still on the way to modern organisation, this analysis, to consider the actualities to which 
In this process, it is true, she has advanced with these " potential " numbers shrink in their turn. 
astonishing rapidity, but it is still far from com 
pletion. It is an Empire in which the economic 
resources of all kinds, including communications 
and equipment, the instruction of officers, and the 
rest, cannot be, as it is in the older countries, co- 
incident with the maximum man-power of the 
State. 
No one can exactly fix the limits of the num- 
bers which Russia could put into the European 
field in an indefinite space of time. But we can 
make some rough estimate of her potential (not 
her actual) adult male population thus available 
GREAT BRITAIN. 
The three million maximum potential which 
we have set down for England is modified only by 
two considerations. The first is whether recruit- 
ment upon the present system will give this num- 
ber — which can certainly in theory be attained; 
the second is whether the existing army on the 
Continent into which the new levies must be 
" digested " will be large enough, when the time 
comes, to achieve that process of absorption. 
You do not pour new levies into a field unsup- 
within, say, the space of one year, supposing she ported. It would be fatal. You mix them with 
could obtain all the equipment she needed and had and embrigade them with, make them fight side 
the communications wherewith to feed and to sup- by side with, men who have already formed them- 
ply all present upon the field. 
Russia calls up for training every year rather 
more (but not many more) young men than does 
Germany. She calls up anything between a sixth 
more and a fifth more — that is, for regular train- 
ing; you must allow a good deal of margin for 
irregulars. 
When we consider that Germany by her 
system can lay her hand on just under 4^ million 
men of military age who have had some 
selves to war in action. 
If we allow so long a space as a year for the 
process, and if we consider both the quality of the 
material and the intensive training to which it has 
been submitted, we may, I think (short of unex- 
pected disasters), be easy as to this second con- 
sideration. 
As to the first consideration, that is, whether 
our present system of recruitment will provide the 
full number or no, only the future will show. More 
sort of training, we may safely put the similar than half , but not two-thirds, of the task is already 
number in Russia at over five million. But you accomplished. We have about another million to 
cannot put it at much over five million, because find. To accomplish this by a compulsory 
the increase of the Russian population is so rapid, system is a highly controversial proposal, not suit- 
a* 
