jjecemoer 30, 1915. 
1^ J\ IN U 
I\ i\ U 
VV A 1 JIK , 
months, will be very serious. It is his whole 
business if he attack at all to attack soon and to 
decide the matter. But in this business his chief 
weakness must be the difficulty of '.upply. 
Elsewhere in all his Eastern operations the 
enemy has had the immense advantage that his 
opponents could not meet his heavy guns. There 
were few even of medium calibre to answer his 
own, none of the largest calibre, and, for all pieces, 
from field guns upwards, a very grave lack of shell. 
It was this which compelled the Russians to 
retreat, it was this which, after the first three 
weeks\resistance in the North of Serbia, led almost 
suddenly to the collapse of the Serbian armies and 
to an almost imimpeded advance of the enem\' 
southward and westward through their State. 
But when he attempts to solve the problem of 
Salonika the enemy will, for the first time in his 
Eastern operations, come across an equipment 
and a science equivalent or superior to his own. 
All the more will it be necessary for him to do the 
thing at once if he does it at all, at a very heavy 
cost in men, and if he fails to effect his purpose thus 
rapidly the purpose of the Salonika expedition 
will have been achieved and its future usefulness 
proved more and more as the spring approaches. 
His great handicap, in the argent necessity 
he is under of doing the thing quickly, lies in the 
fact that his supply of large shell has but one 
continuous single line railway behind it, that of 
the Vardar Valley. 
* * if ■* 
The dearth of news this weeK gives me an 
opportunity to deal with certain questions which 
have been put to me recently by very many 
correspondents and with which I should ha\e dealt 
earlier had space permitted it.' 
MUNITIONS. 
A great number of these questions liave turned 
iipon munitions. Many people have been naturally 
confused and puzzled by the political use that has 
been made of the munitions question. 
The German service (and the Austro- 
Hungariun service following suit) were prepared 
before the war with plant and material for a very 
large production of heavy shell and -that shell 
filled with high explosives. 
They were further prepared with a ver\' 
large supply of heavy artillery other than the 
guns actually in fortresses. The French, and the 
rest of the Allies, more or less under French in- 
fluence in the matter, were not so well prepared 
with either the weapons or the missiles or (what 
has turned out to be far more important than 
either) the plant for making the same. 
The causes of the enemy's advantages here 
were two. One was a matter in which he had 
shown better judgment than his opponents, the 
other a matter in which he had shown worse 
judgment. His right guess turned to his advant- 
age. So also,, by an accident common enough 
in the history of war, did his wrong guess.* 
His right guess was that the modern fortress 
of isolated permanent works would, since the 
development of aircraft, go down before the modem 
siege train. In anticipation of this he prepared a 
very large mobile siege train and plant for the 
stipplying of it with great masses of large high 
explosive shell. 
The matter where he guessed wrong, but which 
none the less turned to his advantage, was the 
matter of the use of heavy euns in the open field. 
Roughly speaking, the French school had decided 
that the use of heavy guns in the field made' one 
pay more in mobility than they were worth' in 
offensive power. They thought that in the fi^ld, 
that is, with armies manoeuvring openly, the 
field gun firing shrapnel would do all that was 
needed and permit of great mobility as well. 
In this judgment the French were right and 
the Germans' wrong, as the Battle of the Mkme 
amply proved and all the fighting until it 'de- 
generated into trench warfare. 
No one expected it to degenerate into trench 
\\arfare. But when it had done so the advantage 
to the enemy of already having this great plant for 
the production of high explosive shell was enormous. 
Against trenches shrapnel is of value in " search- 
ing " trenches and especially in causing casualties 
among men who are moving up through the 
communication trenches, also in meeting any 
exit from the trenches, but still more in sweeping 
the entanglements put up in front of trenches. 
But for destroying the trenches themselves, for 
knocking them to pieces, causing casualties behind 
their shelter in the recesses dug out of them, 
above all for preparing an at lack, high explosive 
shells from guns of larger calibre than field guns 
are essential. Further, there became aipparent 
when the trench warfare was fully established last 
autumn, what neither party had dreamt of in 
preparing for the war, namely that the expenditure 
of shell would be incredibly greater than anything 
known in the past. It was not a question of 
multiplying the old supply by 2, or 3, or even 
10, but by 100. 
Under these circumstances everyone, the 
Allies as well as the enemy, began to produce large, 
high explosive shell, and larger guns, as fast as 
they could. 
But the enemy started with the very strong 
!iandicap described above. He further had most 
of the industrial resources of Europe at his dis- 
posal, his armies occupying the industrial portions 
of Poland, Belgium and Northern France as well 
as his own territory. The Allies could depend 
through their command of the sea upon a certalin 
(insufficient) American and Japanese supply, but 
only after considerable lapse of time — and mean- 
while were caught short at home. The French 
and the English at once began purchasing buildings 
and laying down new plant to make good this 
very serious difference — but the preparation of 
new plant is a very lengthy business. The plant 
was at last ready and the output on a very large 
scale began in both France and Britain with 'the 
end of the spring. 
At the present moment it is already superior 
to the output of the enemy and is growing Very 
rapidly at that. The enemy's output is limited, as 
are all his activities now, by the limitation of his 
man-power. It was in this country the Army and 
the War Office which made it possible to have this 
large production of shell. It was they who saw to 
the plant being provided and laid all the founda- 
tions of the work. The politicians only came in 
when it was to their advantage to do so at a later 
stage and to reap where others had sown. The 
newspaper panic, which was the most disgraceful 
feature in the whole business, determining among 
other things the attitude of neutrals against us, 
•E.J. —The French in the early revohitionary war guessed quite 
wrongly that they coulrt get tiieir new levies to attack in the old 
nia^=icd formation. The now levies scattered against all orders and 
were, so far a failure. But out of that very woaUnc« carae. later oa, 
the pxree<lin;!v successful " tirailleur " forniatioti. 
