March 6, 1915. 
LAND AND SKATER. 
puch a time." Ho does not mean by this to 
assert j he is only Btating a probability more or 
less well founded, according to the evidence ho 
brings forward. 
To this main criticism I think a second 
ehould be added, particularly important in the 
case of any military judgment. It is this : There 
is all the difference in the world between saying 
that the critical moment should arrive round 
or after such and such a period, and naming 
that period as "the end" of hostilities. There 
has been in every military operation which 
history records a point, not always exactly 
defined, but lying Avithin fairly narrow limits, 
after which the end was in sight; but how long 
the journey would take before that end was 
actually reached nearly always depends upon 
factors not in the cognisance of contemporaries. 
All that I am tiying to do in these notes is to 
gau^e the critical moment which, if it is suc- 
cessfully past, will put the end of the war in 
ei^ht for the Allies, and even in this t«sk I am 
doing no more than making the roughest of 
guesses. 
So much being said, let us consider this 
pecond point of the reserve of men. We have 
Been that the factor of wastage brings one to a 
critical point in the early summer — say any 
time between early May and late June. 
Now an examination of the problem from 
the point of view of man-power converges upon 
Bomewhat the same period. I should not bo 
surprised if something of what I here have to 
Bay is censored, still less complain at anv 
exercise of that necessary power. But I shall 
be as discreet as my limited knowledge permits 
pie to be. 
Upon the side of the enemy we have three 
elements to consider — always excluding, as I 
said last week, the unknown chances of 
neutrals joining in. These three elements are 
what Germany has to put forward of trained 
and equipped men and when; what Austria- 
Hungar5^ and what Turkev. 
Germany is at once tte Power which we 
can best judge in this regard, because her 
problem has been more thoroughly studied, 
and, as we shall see in a moment, her two Allies 
can hardly be judged save upon the analogy 
of her own position. Moreover, w^hat Germany 
can do is the important point, for what she 
cannot do, certainly her Allies cannot. 
Well, then, the two things that we have 
to note about the reserve of German man-power 
are, first, its total amount, and, secondlj'-, the 
flize of the batches in which it can be success- 
fully put into the field. 
As to the first of these, I will simply repeat 
tile estimate whicb has been so continually put 
for»vard in these columns, and which I believe 
to be amply supported by independent 
estimates of the highest official character. 
Germany, over and above the men she trained 
and equipped for the first efforts of the war — 
her regular forces — commands a maximum 
reserve man-power of perhaps more than tv\-o 
millions and certainly less than two millions 
and a half. We need not return to the argu- 
ments stated over and over again in these 
columns in favour of this number, upon which, 
as I have said, a weighty agreement exists. 
There is only one point upon which we need 
iingcr, for that is one which has appeared often 
In the correspondence columns of this pap6r, 
and it is one upon which there is always a good 
deal of misunderstanding: I mean the propor- 
tion of military efficients kept back for civilian 
emplojonont. It is obvious tbat great masses oi 
the necessary work, both agricultural and in- 
dustrial, can be done by men w^ho would not 
pass the doctor. But that one allows for in 
making this estimate. The point is that a very 
considerable amount of absolutely necessary 
work can only be done by men who certainly 
would pass the military doctor. That is true of 
a great deal of railway work, of most mining, 
of nearly all the liea\y work in metals which 
provides, remember, not only the guns and 
the ammunition and the shipbuilding, but 
also the necessary upkeep of very heavily, 
worked railways, and of all the auxiliary 
machinery without which neither can a great 
campaign be conducted nor the general life of 
the nation maintained. It is even true in some 
degree of agriculture, and if any proof were 
lacking of a truth so patent, here is an 
excellent example. If there is one nation 
which has trained every man available it 
is the French. Yet the French in the 
heart of the campaign have been compelled 
to accord leave m rotation to men at the 
front for occasional absolutely necessary 
agricultural work in the interior, and the rail- 
way work, though nothing like what has been 
necessary to the German Empire in this war, 
has again compelled the French to retain so 
considerable a proportion of military efficients 
that even in the small belt of France occupied 
by the enemy these have appreciably swelled 
the total of prisoners taken by the Germans ;i 
for, as we all know, the totals given by the 
Germans of their prisoners include many more 
than the actual soldiers captured. 
To leave this point, then, and to return to 
the German reserve of man-power. Let us call 
it two million four hundred thousand— a very 
high estimate. That figure is convenient, both 
because it weighs the scales against our expec- 
tations or hopes, and also because it is divisible 
into three batches of 800,000, the importance of 
which figure will be apparent in a moment. 
How many of this reserve has Germany 
already put into the field ? 
To judge that, let us note that two consider- 
able bodies of newly trained men, Avhether 
drafted into existing formations or forming 
new units, have already been noted, and their 
numbers roughly estimated in the field. The 
first batch came in Avith the late autumn of last 
year. The last batch have be»un to appear with 
the more recent operations ot the late winter — 
and here let me add that I am revising and 
somewhat changing here upon later informa- 
tion earlier estimates of my own, which were 
based upon insufficient data. 
We know, again, that tlie number of men 
Germany can train at any one time is limited to 
a certain maximum. Her machinery of in- 
structions, including ground accommodation 
and instructors, permits her to produce, in 
Buccessive relays, batches of no more than 
800,000. 
We need not, unfortunate!}^, modify this 
much by any consideration of difliculty in 
equipment, for Germany has been preparing 
this war for three years, tAvo of which have been 
