March 20, 1915 
LAND A N D .W. A T E R. 
proportion of the latter be very high, it may make 
him believe that the moral of his forces has been 
seriously affected. IMeanwhile he does know that 
the heavj' guns in question iccve thrown into the 
lake, and his knowledge of this detail tends to 
make him accept the rest. 
Finally, if things are not going as civilian 
opinion has been led to expect, it is of both mili- 
tary and political importance to reassure that 
opinion as best one can. No Government and no 
General Staff neglects that duty; and what we 
have to remember in the German performance of 
it is not so much the exaggeration or inaccuracy 
as the curious clumsiness (as it seems to us) which 
marks this third feature. 
For instance, after such a communique as 
that which I have just quoted, there may be added 
some such phrase as " the enemy is now dis- 
persed and our troops are occupied in collecting 
the enormous booty left behind in l)is rout." This 
phrase may correspond to a very different reality. 
In point of fact, perhaps what liappeiied was that 
the German force, having got too far from its 
real head, was ahead of its supplies, and was 
unable to make good a vigorous pursuit. But the 
truth is put in this more flattering fashion in order 
to reassure opinion at home and to console it for 
the absence of further favourable developments. 
When we turn to the communique the Ger- 
mans have issued with regard to the prolonged 
French effort upon the Souain— Yille-sur-Tourbe 
front (it lasted for the ten days from the 26th 
February to the 8th March), we get an excellent 
example of all these features. We are told that 
the French fired about 100,000 hoaxj shell. That 
is accurate. We are next told that the front was 
at first held by "two weak Rhine divisions " 
against a quarter of a million men. This is a false- 
hood so large and clear that at the first reading 
it astonishes one; but the motive of telling it is 
Boon apparent, and from its character we can 
judge the nature of similar statements in other 
evidence of the same sort. It docs not need any 
detailed proof to assure all the soldiers, and even 
most mere students of war, that the front in ques- 
tion could not possibly have been held in that 
fashion. Two depleted divisions means something 
less than 30,000 men— i.e., something less than 
2,000 men a mile. Further, the point in question 
was not held ; it gave way. But the statement is 
not without a cause. It has for its main object the 
confusion or mis-information of the French com- 
manders, who know perfectly well that it is non- 
eense. It has for its object the heartening of 
domestic opinion. Hence the sentimental detail of 
the district from which the defenders were drawn. 
iWe shall appreciate, however, that such statement 
is not as clumsy as it looks when we remember that 
the German civilian population cannot, any 
more than the French or our own, hear the full 
truth, or indeed any truth which their Govern- 
ment does not desire them to hear. It will un- 
doubtedly prove, when we can get the real facts in 
detail in some official history of the war, that 
troops from the Rhine provinces were present; 
that they withstood in some part of the field a very 
formidable assault for some little time ; that they 
behaved with gallantry; and that, perhaps, they 
were for the moment isolated from support. It 
will also probably appear that about this time 
there was danger of grumbling in the Rhine pro- 
liuces, and that this emphasis upon the deeds ot 
the troops from that district was of political ad- 
vantage to the German Government. 
Next turn to the statement in the same com- 
munique that over 2,000 unwounded French 
prisoners were taken. That may be true, or it may 
not. Most probably it is untrue, because in a pro- 
longed but successful advance a capture of this 
sort, though quite possible, is unlikely : it is rather 
the kind of thing you get in a retirement. But the 
French commanders can hardly have a positive 
knowledge upon the subject. They will discover 
that a certain number of men are missing, and the 
more the enemy can get them to believe there are 
missing unwounded the more they may affect the 
French commander's judgment of the condition 
of his troops; although it is a doubtful game to 
play with the army of Champagne, the temper of 
which is by this time thoroughly well known to its 
leaders. 
Note again the characteristic compliment 
paid to the courage of tlie French troops. That 
lias been an official note in the German despatches 
for some time past. It is connected with the idea 
that the French are ready to make peace and are 
fairly sympathetic to the German service, and this 
in its turn is a parallel to what we know of the 
really startling incapacity of modern Germany to 
understand things outside itself — a feature often 
present in nations after a considerable period of 
rapid material progress. Finally, observe the im- 
possible remark with which the communique 
closes : " The French lost 44,000 men, which is 
about three times the amount of the German 
losses."' Whether the French lost over 44,000 
men, we have no evidence to tell us, though 
it is an unlikely figure, but that the 
German losses were only 14,000 to 15,000 
men is more nonsense. But, it is not nonsense 
written without a cause. The French know, of 
course, more or less, what the German losses have 
been, because they have advanced over the ground 
upon which these losses have taken place. For 
instance, they have counted the dead, and they 
rendered an estimate of 10,000. It would be 
foolish for the French to lie in this matter, because 
the Germans approximately know their own losses 
by this time, and upon a general advance of this 
sort thousands of Frenchmen are able to cor- 
roborate the official estimate or to discover its 
falsehood, if it is false. Seeing that numbers of 
those who fall are buried by the enemy or are with- 
drawn upon the point of death, we may be fairly 
certain that the total losses in dead w^ere more, and 
not less, than 10,000, and we may be equally certain 
that the total losses in wounded and unwounded 
prisoners were at least three times as many. That 
is the very lowest multiple one can possibly take. 
The German statement, therefore, is not even 
intended to deceive the enemy. Its falsity is 
clearly designed to a political and domestic end. 
And here again we can guess what that end may, 
be. 
All observers of recent actions in the East and 
the West are agreed upon the enormity of the Ger- 
man losses. We further know to what that high 
percentage of loss is attributed. It is attributable 
to the tactical traditions of the enemy ; his fighting 
in close order; to the superiority of the Allied 
lieavy artillery in the West, which in its turn is 
due to the superiority of the Allied air work, and 
its repeated chances during such work, as in Cham- 
pagne, with its frequent retirements of the enemy 
in masses over open field, and its equally frecfuent 
