LAND AND .W. A T E R. 
March 27, 1915. 
Bonictimes coiitinues to give us, false statements 
which sufficiently resemble the truth as to be 
acceptable, or which so refer to matters we cannot 
judge as to leave us in doubt — e.g., his statement 
that the whole of the Russian 20th Army Corps 
had gone with a loss of some 50,000 men. The 
real loss in that particular case turned out in the 
long run to be something under 25,000. 
But he also puts in (and particularly of late, 
since he has begun to feel embarrassed) statements 
wliich do not belong to either of these categories 
and which it is stupid for him to put forward, as 
that noted in the beginning of this week's notes, 
that the whole Russian 10th Army Corps had 
been wiped out, so that the German prisoners 
in Russian hands were only a sixth of the 
numbers officially given by the Russians, and this 
last protest about his losses at Neuve Chapelle 
came under such a heading. 
CAUSES OF SUCCESS OF THE POLICY 
OF ATTRITION. 
To return from this digression to the policy 
of attrition, we know, and it has been analysed 
in these columns, why one can calculate upon 
the proportion of losses of the enemy being 
nearly always greater than that of the Allies, 
although the Allies are the attacking party. It 
is due to the facts that the attacks are carefully 
calculated to a local effect alone; that superior 
air work allows them to concentrate with greater 
Bccurity than the enemy; that the. heavy artil- 
lery on the Allies' side is now at least equal to 
that of the enemy, and usually, from the excellence 
of air work in correcting the shots, surpasses it 
in effect; that tlie Allies work with larger 
reserves than the Germans in the .West, and that 
the German counter-offensive is nearly always 
undertaken in massed formation. 
Now, so long as this principle of attrition 
can be continued successfully, that is so long as 
the tenacity required for so strict a plan avails, 
neither the command that orders it nor the public 
opinion behind the conmiand at home will cnange 
their policy, for the Allies in the West are heading 
directly for the aim of all war, which is the dis- 
armament of the enemy in greater proportion than 
one own disarmament, in a given time. 
That policy will be working both in the 
means and in the end. It will be working in the 
means because the ceaseless fretting at the lines 
is continuously costing the enemy more than it 
costs the Allies. It will be working in its ends 
as well, because the fruits of such a policj^ unless 
the enemy can achieve a decision in the East and 
bring hack masses westward, must be ultimately 
the breaking or the shortening of the German 
lines, with the consequences frequently being 
described here. We are able now to estimate one 
very considerable example of this policy of attri- 
tion, of the way in which it is conducted and of 
its results in the Champagne fighting. Full 
details of the whole operation upon the Perthes 
front have been supplied by the French Govern- 
ment and by an English eye-witness, to wliom the 
French Government gave special facilities, so 
that we are in a position to follow out, in detail, 
the whole of this large operation. 
THH OPERATIONS IN CHAMP.\GNE. 
The wliole front of tliis great effort, which 
lasted from the middle of February to the end of 
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