January 30, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE GERMAN RESERVE. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Sir,— There seems to me to be one possible loophole in 
Mr. IJelloo's calculation, of which a supporter of tlie larger 
—four million— figure as that of the German reserve mi^ht 
avail himself. Of the 12,000,000 males who enter into the 
calculation, Mr. Belloc disposes of 25 per cent., that is 
3,000,000, as the usual proportion of persons unfit for military 
service. Of the rest, 2,000,000 at least are needed to keep the 
mechanism of internal industry going. But would not the 
aforesaid 3,000,000, or a very large number of them, be com- 
petent to do even hard civil work, though unable to endure the 
exceptional severities of a military campaign? Or, if by 
themselves they were unequal to the burdens of industry, 
would not they, with the addition of 1,000,000 completely 
able-bodied men, be able to do as much as the 2,000,000 which 
is Mr. Belloc's figures? In that case the Germans would have 
put into the field 5,000,000, be keeping 4,000,000 men for tho 
running of the country, and possess a reserve force of 
3,000,000 men.- Yours, etc.. 
J. K. MOZLBZ. 
Pembroke College, Cambridgo. 
January 25, 1915. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Dear Sir, — May I venture to indicate some factors which 
seem to have escaped Mr. Belloc's attention in his " further 
noto on the numbers of the German Reserve " in your issue 
of the 23rd instant? 
Mr. Belloc says: "We have not got to guess, we know 
the total number of adult males of military age from twenty 
to forty-five years inclusive, in the German Empire." But 
the German authorities would seem to have cast their net over 
A much wider period than this. Youths of eighteen, and 
even younger, seem to have been called to the colours; nor 
docs the age limit of forty-five appear to apply, judging from 
the description we get of prisoners taken. 
Again he says: "We know that at the very least two 
million of able-bodied men must be retained to ' run the 
nation.'" Surely, much of this most necessary work can be 
done, and well done, by men physically unfit for military 
service. 
Thus, Germany's potential reserve of men would seem 
to be appreciably larger than Mr. Belloo's contention would 
allow. But there is another side to the question. 
Germany may be able to call up and drill these men. 
She may even be able to officer them quite as well as we are 
able to officer our million. But when we consider the delay 
end difficulty we experience in arming, equipping and cloth- 
ing that million, with all the world open to us from which 
to draw raw material, how much greater must be Germany's 
difficulty in the task of equipping and supplying with ammu- 
nition her potential millions, with her industries stifled and 
cramped by the silent pressure of hostile sea power? 
It might not be prudent to build too confidently on this, 
but it seems at least probable that our enemy will at most be 
able to furnish from this source drafts for his existing forma- 
tions, and that he will be quite unable to form from this 
material new Field Armies. — Faithfully yours, 
Geo. M. p. Murray. 
Kingi5towTi, 
January 24. 
To the Editor of Land and Watee. 
Dear Sib, — With reference to Mr. Belloc's articles as to 
Qie number of men that Germany still has in reserve, particu- 
larly his article in the current issue, is there not one point 
■which Tie has overlooked? From the 12 millions between 18 
and 45 he deducts 3 millions as being militarily unfit, and a 
further 2 millions for " able-bodied men to run the State " ; 
(but surely out of the 3 millions there will bo a very large num- 
ber who would be sufficiently able-bodied for the purpose of 
"running the State." Moreover, there may be a large num- 
ber of men from among those over 45 who would also be 
aufficiently able-bodied for the purpose. It seems to me that 
£rom the 3 millions and those over 45, Germany ought to be 
able to provide, if not the whole, at any rate the greater part 
of the 2 millions required to "run the State," leaving these 
free to serve in the Army ; and if I am right as to this, it 
would about Tiring tho figures of the reserve up to tho num- 
ber of 4 millions, with which Mr. Belloc disagrees. 
It would be interesting if Mr. Belloc could give us his 
yiews as to this. — Yours faithfully, 
Haeey Knox. 
14, St. Helen's Race, E.G. 
January 22. 
THE BLOCKADE. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Sir,— Mr. Belloc asks why the blockade of Germany can- 
not be made absolute, by which he means why she cannot 
be cut off from obtaining anything whatsoever that is trans- 
ported by sea to neutral countries and thence transmitted to 
Orermany, for nothing is reaching German ports direct and, 
as ho admits, we cannot intercept the products of neutral 
countries contiguous to Germany. 
The answer would soom to be particularly easy We 
are invited to defy tho Declaration of Paris, to make every- 
thing contraband without reference to its warlike character 
or any presumed destination for military purposes, and to 
apply the doctrine of continuous voyage to everything To 
do any such thing would be to betray each and and every one 
of the causes for which, according to Mr. Asquith, wo took 
up arms, the faith of international treaties, international law, 
and the rights of neutral states. Surely everyone must see 
how impossible that is. — I am, etc., 
r, TT ,, ^ , A. A. MiTCHELI,. 
7, Huntly Gardens, Glasgow. 
January 19. 
THE FORMIDABLE. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
XV ,^'"'~;^1 '■^P'y ^ ^^^ ^^^^'^ <»f ^r- John Chadwick about 
tHe loss of the Formidable and the use of compressed air to 
prevent similar disasters. I think my best answer is to ask 
Mr Chadwick whether he thinks a naval architect of Sir 
William White's eminence would have wasted his time in 
talking to such a hopeless amateur as he plainly imagines me 
It was part of the necessary intellectual equipment of 
a Royal Engineer officer to be thoroughly familiar with tho 
principles governing the construction of battleships; and as 
I spent some two-thirds of my service of forty years in dock- 
yard towns, and had watched the construction and completion 
of pretty well every type of vessel in tho Navy since the laying 
down of the old Alexandra, about 1872, I am quite aware of 
the structural difficulties he alludes to. But I am equally con- 
fident that they can be overcome. 
F. N. Maude. 
WATER-LOGGED TRENCHES. 
To the Editor of Land and Water. 
Sir, — Numerous letters from the trenches describe them 
as sloughs of mud slush, into which the men sink somotimea 
to the waist; others refer to the unavailing efforts mad© to 
ameliorate this condition by the use of pumps, due to th» 
muddy mixture deranging tho mechanism of the appliances. 
Such a problem could be solved by resort to mora 
primitive methods. In Eastern countries and in Eastern 
Europe and Russia it is customary to raise water from 
shallow wells and streams by the simple apparatus I will now 
describe in its application to trench slush, an apparatus 
which could be constructed in half an hour from materials 
at hand, and by which one man could dispose of several 
gallons a minute without ezertioa. 
The materials would consist of a short tree trunk of 
about four to six inches in diameter, or a baulk of timi <r, 
of a length sufficient to rest horizontally from one side of a 
trench to the other. Alternatively of a tree stump about six 
to eight feet long, terminating in a Y-forked end. Upon 
this beam, or within the fork of the Y, is balanced a sapling 
some 20 to 30 feet long. Tho butt end is further weighted 
