LAND AND W A T E E. 
March 6, 1915. 
ppent in vcrv acilvo preparations, and she made 
ttio war at her own moment, when these pre- 
parations were complete. We may reasonably 
jjresume that slio would put the newly trained 
men into the field as rapidly as she* possibly 
could, for her great advantage is in tnis very 
fact, that she alone was prepared, and that, in 
the lone: run, time Avas against her. We may, 
therefore, reasonably conclude that her first 
relay exhausted one of these batches; her 
second relay the second, and that a third only 
remains, ior in two million four hundred 
thousand you have three groups of 800,000 
each. Allowing (in spite of a certain proportion 
whom we know from prisoners and from letters 
and diaries found to have been .sent forward 
after a very short training indeed) that the mass 
of each batch has received full three months' 
training, and allowing, in order to weight the 
scales against our expectations and hopes, that 
not all of the theoretical maximum of any one 
batch could be dealt with, yet we shall not have 
much more than a million left, while in all prob- 
abilitv tlie remaining 800,000 of the theoretical 
calculation are over, rather than under, the 
mark. 
On what kind of date ought v,e to expect 
the appearance of these last levies? At the 
earliest the end of April, at the latest Mav; or, 
at the very latest, for that margin which might 
not be accommodated in the training grounds 
at once, and could only be put in as the earlier 
units left for the field, we might admit that 
the last of the newly trained men would anpear 
in the month of June. 
This calculation gives us much the same 
critical date— the earlv summer— which we 
found in discussing the first factor. It is upon 
an exammation of the reserve of man-power as 
upon an examination of wastage, the earlv 
summer that should provide the critical 
naoment. After that moment the man-poAver of 
the enemy cannot be increased or recouped 
appreciably so far as Germany is concerned. 
For Austria-Hungary we have data far les.s 
certain. Such vague and general indices as we 
nave got may be put very briefly thus : 
, As the Dual Monarchy trained and armed 
prigmall V a smaller proportion of its total popu- 
lation a larger margin remained theoreticallv 
available. On the other hand, the Dual 
Monarchy had riothing like the organisation for 
the rapul training of large masses of men in 
rotation that the Gorman Empire had, and we 
are putting the figures very high indeed if wo 
thi f'o? "'^"■'^'^ ^'^^ *"* ^PP®^^ proportionate to 
bOO.OOO as available for Austria-Hungary at tlie 
tuTJ'"''- , ^^^' ^^'.«t jeniember that Serious 
threat under which the Austro-Hunaarian 
dominions, and particularly Hungary," have 
lam smce the invasion of Galicia and So 
musrifL'^ V"' ?"'^^^"^, ^" th^ Carpathians 
iruist have already urged the inciusfon of al 
that was available, however imperfec ly 
trained, and it is hardly likely thiat tS 
remain more than half a^ million of douS 
The undir. i f -'"^Z^' ^^""'^^ ^"« mismanaged. 
ine under-estimate may even be grace But 
Ge'Sauir A,f. "^ '''I ^^^^^« thisi?;r of the 
ueimanic Alliance has hitherto made of 
steady recruitment. There is rather every in- 
flication, since the threat to Hungary 'first 
l^ecame serious last autumn, of great masses of 
imperfectly trained men having been jjushed 
forward. 
Of Turke3% all wo can say. knowing the 
difficulties in'equipment, and the totally dif- 
ferent social conditions one has to deal with, as 
well as the hopeless variety in recruitment, ia 
that this branch of the enemy's alliance will 
hardly put forward in the near future any con- 
siderable bodies beyond those already in the 
field, either so oflicored or so munitioned as to 
menace the opposing Powers in any unexpected 
degree. Turkish territory is already nearly 
isolated from its Allies; its further and mora 
complete isolation would seem imminent. 
We may sum up, and say that the key to 
the understanding of all this factor is the 
German recruitment, that this has been studied 
fairly carefully, and that if a further million 
can be provided thence by the early summer, 
w-e have iu that figure the limit. 
Against these figures we know that the 
Allied recruitment is of throe kinds. There ia 
the training of the French new^ class already 
completed. We have next the new British 
Armies, and we have lastly the enormous 
I'ussian reserve of men, whose presence in the 
field demands one thing only— equipment. 
Now the problem of Paissian equipment, 
which we have touched upon before in connec- 
tion with the ice-bound ports of that Power, is 
affected by two efforts now in progress ; the first 
IS the forcing of the openings to the Black Sea, 
the fortune of which is not vet decided. The 
second is the completion of" the broad gau^re 
™ .*o Archangel, on which the Russian news 
othcially passed has just informed us that it is 
in progress, but how far advanced we are not 
told. The old avenue of supply from Arch- 
angel was not more than many hundred miles 
of single narrow gauge line, very insufficiently 
provided with rolling stock. When that insuffl- 
cient avenue wall be supplanted by a full rail- 
way, we do not yet know, but, apart from this. 
Avith the early summer entry through the ports 
which are kept open with such difficulty, if at 
all, during the winter, will begin again, and 
here, as in other lines of analysis we have 
examined, though a little later than the date 
upon which those other lines converge, we find 
the critical moment corresponding to the open- 
mg of tne summer season, with a possibility 
that good lortune at the mouths of the Black" 
bea may very considerably advance such a 
mom^ent. 
To put the matter in the most general terms 
possible It would seem as thought the be'S' 
at the latest, and with increasing force in the 
mterval be ween, the crisis of the war, so far as 
hnio • ^ ^^^^ P®^'^^^ something lilco a 
balance m men might well be established, and 
If that period be successfully past, the tide 
would seem-judged by thcse^necessarlly ^! 
perfect arguments-to be turning 
-ranh^cTl" /n?T *^ ^' considered the geo- 
grapiical and the moral factors— the first 
-rid\^h ?h«'°'? ^^^"^ ^^'^ ^^"^^^st judgment 
and with these I propose to deal next week. 
