^i^^tt8>, 14, 1915. 
LAND, AND W: A T E R « 
Special Supplement to Lmd&Wakt 
THE FIRST YEAR OF WAR 
BY 
HILAIRE BELLOC 
^ A H POLLEN 
THE YEAR'S WAR. 
AUGUST 1, 1914— AUGUST 1, 1915. 
I. 
■ N approaching the summary of this first year 
•;• of the great war upon the anniversary of 
'its declaration, I will beg the reader to 
■ "beail' ih mind the limitations under which 
Buch a task labours, and I would briefly state 
^hese, .Ijefor^, proceeding to the matter of history. 
...1; First, commentary of this kind written 
during the actual course of a campaign, the end 
of which is not in sight, necessarily loses some- 
thing of historical truth in its " atmosphere." 
(While facts may be accurately enough recorded, 
the proportion between them cannot be clearly 
seen, both because the range of vision is as yet 
so short, and because the upshot of any great 
event colours its whole character for history. 
,Until the conclusion is reached that event pos- 
sesses no permanent and secure character. 
On this account some matters will necessarily 
be unduly emphasised which should rather be in 
the background; others, which will turn out ulti- 
mately of the first moment, will be unduly 
p^glepted.,, These are errors inevitable in the con- 
tempora.ry description of any action. 
' • Next, the reader must remark that of all 
wars this is the most difficult to follow, even in 
its largest lines, because in no other has the [)rac- 
tice of military secrecy— always advisable— been 
more perfectly realised. The ample information 
wliich was usually given at the moment of 
action — or, at any rate, within a few weeks of it— 
to the contemporary observer of past Euronean 
wars, is quite denied to the observer of this one; 
he can but record as historical facts things 
admitted upon every side and demonstrable from 
the map or from the known numerical limits im~ 
posed bv Nature or admitted in official records 
before the war broke out. 
,Which leads me to my third point— that in 
the matter of numbers (the all-important criterion 
of every military affair) no information whatever 
of an exact and official kind is obtainable. AH 
is guess-work, and one's judgment and power of 
rec-ord are correspondingly varyiog and uncer- 
tain - «0 would, indeed; 'be a'ft!K)I who pretended 
„ ■•'■'•''''• •' '' '■'' 
I. II 
1» 
to follow week by week the progress of such a 
war as this under such conditions of secrecy, and 
never cht^nge his estimate of numbers in men and 
material. Nor do I put it forward for one 
moment that the conclusions I may arrive at have 
any value beyond that attaching' to the process 
ot calculation which I lay before the reader 
Nevertheless, it is well to remember that even in 
this grave and fundamental element of uncer- 
tainty there is a certain and absolutely fixed 
element, which is that of the minimum and 
maximum. 
For instances : Twenty calculations, each of 
the most sober and careful type, backed by the 
most rigid argument, may arrive at twenty dis- 
tinct estimates of the numbers armed and 
equipped during the first year of war by the Ger- 
man Empire alone. 1 say we are quite uncertain 
which ot these twenty may be nearest the truth 
But we can be absolutely certain that no such 
estimate is worth consideration which puts those 
numbers as high as nine millions. .We can 
be equally certain that no estimate is worthy 
of consideration which puts them below seven.' 
Or, again, what number of men per mile are the 
least required with the aid of prolonged entrench- 
ment and of modern military machines to hold a 
certain front in open country is suspectible of 
endless debate. One hundred varying factors, 
from the quality of troops to the mere nature of 
soil, come into such guess-work. Twenty good 
authorities may come to twenty different figures. 
But here again we remain quite confident, under 
the conditions of this war and with the machines 
It uses, that five thousand men, fully equipped 
and gunned, per mile will certainly hold such a 
line; that anything much under three thousand 
will not. 
Which maximum and minimum do not mean 
that a much larger number may not fail to hold a 
line if they are ill-munitioned compared with the 
enemy, or that a much smaller number may not 
hold it if the attack upon it is blundering and 
weak, ill-conceived and under-gunned. But these 
limits are tho.se within which vary our estimat^. 
foi- ' tli^" possible (iii'mb^r^ of a ,'foroQ strohglv',; 
OS 
