February 27, 1915. 
LAND A N D W ATE R. 
Bess, at a million and a quarter, and the total 
permanent losses of herself and her ally, counting 
of coui'se the vast number of Austro-Hungarian 
prisoners, at about double that amount. 
What is more important is a comparison 
between these vast figures and the corresponding 
figures of the Allies. We have a basis for calcula- 
tion, as my readers knovr, in the British official 
figures, and in one — the only one — official pro- 
nouncement delivered in France now nearly three 
months ago. On the basis of both these state- 
ments we may justly regard the total losses of the 
iWestern Allies (excluding sickness) in perma- 
nently disabled, killed, and captured of rather 
more than half a million, but a great deal less 
than three-quarters of a million men. In other 
words, the Germanic powers have l)eou wasting, 
and are wasting, at a rate nearer four than three 
times the rate of the Western Allies. It is true 
that tlicy. have very much more men than the 
iWestcrn Allies, and it is also true that we have 
no figures upon which to estimate, even generally, 
the corresponding Russian losses, tliough we are 
pretty safe in calculating that the latter will 
liardly. counting genuine prisoners of wax* — that 
is, soldiers taken as prisoners— touch the million. 
Perhaps three-quarters would be nearer the mark, 
but the v.-hole thing is, upon that side, obviously 
a mere guess. 
Well, with the Avastage as regards the 
Western field (where tlie ultimate decision must 
lie. though indirectly, as I have said, the Eastern 
field must determine the Western result), let us 
next consider the function of ammunition. 
Here, again, we have no precise or even 
general figures to guide us, but we can take a 
broad survey based upon the simplest and widest 
considerations. It is not only that Germany has 
to be supplied. It is Germany and her Ally, and 
if Germany is highly industrialised, as highly 
industrialised as England herself, Germany's 
Ally is not so. 
Now we know that in those materials for 
amnmnition which are abuiulant both v.ith the 
Allies and v,ith the enemy, the factor is that 
either working at their fullest pressure can 
hardly meet the demand. We can roughly, but 
justly, conclude that with the exhaustion of the 
original stocks the enemy's position becomes, in 
comparison with our own, more and more difficult 
in this particular of amnmnition. 
What is his position with regard to the 
necessities of life in the shape of food? 
There is nothing more difficult to determine 
in all our calculations upon the war. On the one 
hand we know that the whole Prussian system 
depends upon exact calculations, with all the 
strength and weakness attaching to this 
mechanical way of making war, and with its 
corollary of falsehood never ])roceeding from 
emotion, but always from reasoned motive. 
Our knowledge of this character in the Prus- 
sian system would naturally incline us to I^elievc 
that all the talk about the j)incli for food and the 
open proclamation of scarcity is a falsehood 
designed to deceive us as to the enemy's real 
resources. 
On the other hand, we nuist weigh against 
this presum]jtion (which found weight in niany 
quarters and has been supported by some of the 
best critics uj^on our Press) the fact that you 
cannot cany througJi a plan beyond a certain 
magnitude for more than a certain time. Tliei 
bread taxes are realities, so is the war bread, and 
so are the known imports required by Germany, 
from year to year; so is the sum spent by the 
German Government which cannot have passed 
more tlian a certain amount for provisions, so is 
the estimate of tlie enemy that the war would 
hardly last more than six months, so is the fact 
that he made war immediately after harvest. 
Put all that together and it seems much more 
likely that the scarcity is real than that it is 
merely an elaborate pretence; and to this wc 
must add two facts— first, that the Prussian 
falsehood, when it is calculated, is usually of a 
very simple and even a crude nature. To carry, 
through a falsehood of this highty complicated 
length ajid gigantic cliaracter is something of 
which v<e haAc no experience in the career of 
Bi.smarck and his succes.sors. 
But the way in which this scarcity in food 
and in other necessaries of life, such as textiles, 
will affect the duration of the war, depends 
entirely upon the strictness of the blockade to 
which we subject the enemy. 
There are two factors, both political, which 
tend to modify the severity of this blockade. 
I criticise neither : 1 merely state them. 
The first is a point of foreign policy. It is 
lx4ieved by many excellent judges — or has been 
believed until quite latel_y — that a strict blockade 
would cost us more in complications with neutrals 
than it would advantage us against the enemy. 
The second is a conception, j)artly humani-.. 
tarian, partly of- baser origin, but finding con- 
tinual, though restricted, expression in our Press,, 
that to spare the enemy the rigours of a complete 
blockade is at once our duty and our interest. 
We need not here discuss the obvious point, 
that of all nations in the world the Prussian is 
least moved by considerations of humanity, and 
that it would never cross the mind of one of hei.\ 
statesmen or generals to spare this country any 
rigour in blockade with a povvcr of blockade 
open to them. 
I repeat, these notes are not political and are 
not to be used for the purposes of criticism. So 
far as this specific question is concerned — the 
duration of the war — there is no factor in the cal- 
culations more clear than that of the blockade. 
Whatever the forces may be, tending to end or 
to continue the war, and however indeterminate 
our calculations of them may be, the force of a 
blockade is at once all powerful and incalculable, 
and the duration of the war is, other things being 
equal, calculable in an exactly inverse proportion 
to the rigour of the blockade. The sharper the 
blockade tlie shorter the war. The weaker the 
blockade the longer the war. 
It Kuist be I'emembcred in this connection 
that the blockade from which the Germanics 
suffer, is not only that imposed by the Allied 
fleets, of which force, of course, the British 
fleet is far the superior. France will not allow 
Germany an ounce of certain materials v.hich she 
largely controls. Russia, far more important as a 
source of su])ply, will not allow Germany or 
Austria a grain of food for the direct feeding of 
l;er people or for their indirect feeding through the 
keep of her cattle. And Russia can here cut off 
grain to the value of 50 per cent, per family 
in the German Empire. She can compel, and 
has compeiledj that Empire to kill vast 
