March 13, 1915. 
LAND AND .W. A T E K. 
hare reached a line roughly corresponding to 
the line A — B (a front of not ten miles) on the 
above sketch map, having advanced in the 
course of nearly two months from about the line 
C — D, and in the course of, say, four months 
from, roughly, the line E — F. It is clearly 
apparent, even from so elementary a sketch, 
that the rate of advance is insignificant, and 
that although this has been a sector of peculiarly 
concentrated effort. 
iWhat, then, was the object of the French 
commanders in this sector, as in the others of 
which this one may be taken as a type? It was 
here, as everywhere else, attrition, and this 
wearing down of the enemy has been effected 
here as everywhere else by the two new factors 
of superior aviation and superior work with 
heavy guns, coupled, perhaps, with greater 
and increasing reserves of heavy gun am- 
munition. 
The enemy has nearly preserved his original 
line, even in this sector. He has fallen back at 
a rate of less than thirty yards a day on the 
average. It is self-evident that work of that 
kind is not, and never was, intended to be the 
" pushing back " of the enemy out of France. 
It is the fastest rate obtained on any part of 
the line, and yet it would take three j'ears of it 
to go twenty miles and a lifetime to put the 
enemy back entirely 'into his own territory, 
let alone to defeat him. 
No; the object in view here, as everywhere, 
in the West, is usury. Here we have a front, 
taking in its extremes, of not much more than 
twelve miles from lieyond Souain to beyond 
iVillc sur Tourbe, and on that front the Germans 
have fought month after month under the increas- 
ing disadvantages of superior heavy gun fire 
and of wholly superior aviation. There have 
been whole days together during which no 
German airmen have been seen above the 
French lines, and it is not, I believe, an unjust 
estimate that the French have taken three 
observation flights to their enemy's one in this 
single sector. 
Now, these two things combined, supe- 
riority of air-work and superiority of heavy 
gun work, mean, the first that the enemy has 
not been able to gauge the weight of attack 
against him; secondly, that his maintenance 
of the line has only been possible at a very 
heav}^ expense. Both these converge together 
upon a common effect of constant and heavy 
loss. 
Not knowing quite what he has in front 
of him, the enemy masses and attacks in mass; 
losing perpetually out of proportion to his foe 
he must as perpetually reinforce. It is exactly 
three weeks, at the moment of writing, since 
this great effort began in its present form. The 
order for the new offensive dates from Tuesday, 
the 16th of February. In that interval there 
has been sent as reinforcements alone, not 
counting the troops originally present, some 
80,000 to the German front. It is significant 
that much the greater part of these great 
numbers has been hurried forward in the last 
ten days, and that the worst casualties on the 
enemv's side have occurred in the same period. 
The "Cologne Gazette of the Sunday before last 
gave a conspectus of the fighting and its results. 
The remainder of the evidence is only drawn 
from the statements which the French censor- 
ship has passed. ,We must remember that in 
this particular case there is special opportunity^ 
for information, that direct observation accounts 
for a good deal, and that the margin of error in 
the French calculation cannot be great. 
It is an estimate drawn up from the same 
sources' which gives one a total German loss 
since the attack began, excluding prisoners, ol 
certainly over 40,000. That is to say, about a 
third of the total German effectives put foot on 
this piece of the front, for there were certaini_yj 
40,000 already present before the reinforce- 
ments were moved up. It has already been 
mentioned in a previous issue of this paper, I 
think, that up to a date now nearly a fortnight 
past not less than 80,000 rounds of shell had 
already been delivered in that sector, and it ia 
this fortune in ammunition, coupled with a 
better handling of the heavy pieces, that has 
determined so heavy a loss to the enemy. 
The advantage will probably be continued. 
The line A — B on the sketch map above roughly 
represents a crest from which the land gradually 
slopes down to Tahure, and then, after a slight! 
swell, falls again on to the railway. This second 
crest I have marked in a dotted line upon ths 
sketch map. It is considerably lower than the 
first, and joins round to the first in the direo- 
tion H. 
It is possible, therefore, that after further 
prolonged efforts the railway itself may be 
reached and the whole German line be com- 
pelled to fall back some appreciable distance 
— though there is little doubt that by this time 
a parallel light line will have been built behind 
the main railway. But even if that success be 
achieved, the lesson of this front— Sonain — 
Perthes — Beausejour — Ville sur Tourbe — is not 
to be discovered in the rate of the advance but 
in the heaviness of the enemy's perpetual 
losses. 
The particular district in question has ad- 
vantages over nearly all the rest of the front. 
It is quite open ground, save for the group of 
woods west of Perthes; it is light soil which 
dries quicker than any other part of the whole 
line, and it is fairly central. It is thoroughly 
well supplied by the railway in French hands, 
which runs four or five miles behind and 
parallel to the French positions, and the soil is 
favourable to rapid excavation and gives good, 
dry lodgings when it is tunnelled out. The 
effect of the advance here is therefore more 
marked than elsewhere between the Vosges 
and the sea. But the kind of thing that is going 
on here is going on everywhere, though usually 
upon a smaller scale, and the reader will do 
well to mark this particular section and the news 
from it in order to judge the nature and the success 
of the war of attrition in the west. 
THE CALCULUS OF THE GERMAN LOSSE3 
In connection with this matter, one natur- 
ally turns to the very high estimate issued by 
the Press Bureau upon French authority foi? 
the total losses of the enemy. That estimate is 
no less than three million for the German forces 
alone, counting sick, and, apparently, excluding 
the liffhtlv wounded who have returned. 
To deal with these figures is particularly^ 
difficult, because one is in the following dil« 
7* 
