November 6, 1915. 
AN D A N D W A T E R 
army at no more than three and three-quarter 
milUons, putting the dead loss at no more than 
three milhons, then the enemy still has a million 
and a half of efficient reserves. That is more than 
six months supply ahea;d of him at the minimum 
rate of wastage. 
Such a calculation is, of course, absurd. To 
take the lowest conceivable minimum everywhere 
where it favours the enemy and the largest possible 
maximum where it favours him also, is ;:omething 
that the most ardent disseminator of panic must 
see to be ridiculous. 
Take the other extreme, and weight every- 
thing in your own favour, put the total (ierman 
man power (counting that of next year) at barely 
nine, the efftcients kept back for auxiliary services 
at two ; the losses at three and a half, and the 
army at fcur and a half, and the exhaustion of 
eiftcient reserves has been proceeding already for 
more than two months: — which is a conclusion 
equally ridiculous on the other extreme. 
The reasonable conclusion is something of a 
mean between these two and the result that the 
German Empire alone has, including the lads of 
the classes '16 and '17, perhaps a milhon of 
efficients at his disposal. 
But of these much the greater part are the 
two ycung classes — '16 and '17 — and only a small 
margin, perhaps a month's supply of wastage, 
perhaps two, remains over and above these. 
In the dilemma how to deal with this remaining 
material the enemy appears to have decided in the 
fashion I have stated at the beginning of this 
section : — To risk using inefficient material for 
keeping up his units during the winter, and to 
hold back the lads for training during winter with 
the object of putting them forward in the spring. 
USE OF THE CLASSES 1916-17. 
The enemy would appear to have said to 
himself : 
" I must now, or very shortly, allow my 
effectives in the field to dechne, or I must make 
use of inefficient material. But wait a moment : 
That word ' inefficient ' has two meanings. It 
means recruits inefficient through bad health or 
malformation or age — three things that time 
will not cure. But it also means inefficient through 
immaturity. 
" Now I will distinguish between these two. 
For the first category are bad in any case, but the 
inefficiency of the second is modified in my favour 
by time. 
" The winter is approaching. Heavy offensive 
work against my lines during the winter will be 
difficult. The Russian re-equipment will hardly 
permit an offensive from that quarter for several 
months. 
" Very well. I will, during the coming months 
keep up my effectives by drafting up to the Front 
inefficient material of the elderly, or of the physi- 
cally imperfect kind, and I will keep back until 
the spring the lads whom I shall train during the 
winter the boys who passed their eighteenth and 
nineteenth birthdays in the year 1915. They will 
be far better material next year than they are now 
and, if my organisation will stand the strain of 
the inefficient recruitment during the winter, I 
shall be able to appear in the spring of 1916 with a 
mass of human material immature indeed, but 
approaching maturity and advantaged by every 
day that passes. For their inclficiency, unhkc 
that of all the others, is capable of cure and is 
cured by time." 
That, it seems, by our latest information, is 
the enemy calculation. Indeed, we know that lu> 
has already taken lists of men up to iiftj-lwo 
years of age in preparation for the wiatc:' v.aLilagc 
rather than draw on the lads before spring. 
Such a plan does not exclude his desire for peace 
or attempts to make peace while there is yet 
time ; while he yet precariously holds gre.it areas 
of foreign soil and while he can still play the bogey- 
man in the Ba,lkans. But it is an alternative in 
case his increasing eftorts for peace should 
fail. 
Let U3 see how this pans out in numbers and 
in dispositions. 
In dispositions the enemy as a ivhole {i.e., 
Germany and Austria Hungary) is holding 1,500 
miles of line and has , condemned himself to a 
necessary and continuous offensive on that very 
account. He has before him, between now and 
the spring fighting, six months. He cannot 
easily reduce his rate of wastage, both because of 
the extension of his fronts and because by that 
extension he is condemned to a perpetual attack. 
Six months of that sort of thing means round about 
two million men lost to his strength. It might 
be kept as low as 1,800,000, or it might rise to 
two .million and a half. But two million is a 
moderate figure, for he cannot now keep his wastage 
down to a third of a million, nor even much below 
400,000 a month. 
It is clear, then, that his attempt to manage 
those coming winter months without breaking, 
while keeping his younger (German) classes in 
reserve is a gamble, and a gamble with the odds 
against him. 
Let us suppose he brings the gamble off. Let 
us suppose he arrives at the spring of 1916 without 
disaster and with his gradual drawing upon ineffi- 
cients proving, though perilous, sufficient for the 
winter's task. What do the two young classes of 
boys now nineteen and eighteen years old, give hini 
next year ? They arc called, as we have said, in the 
terminology of the conscript countries the " classes 
of '16 and '17," which means the batches of young 
men who would reach their twentieth birthdav 
sometime in 1916 and 1917. The 'Germans 
have not yet called up even '16 to my 
knowledge, but are about to call up both '16 and 
'17 for the winter training. What will this last 
available resource in men gi\c them ? 
I calculate it will give them a little less than 
800,000 recruits- -always supposing that the very 
risky plan proposed for the winter just wins home, 
and that the use of the inefficients, the elderly 
men and the rejected men at the front, during 
that season leads to no disaster. Always sup- 
posing, also, that, during the strain, the German 
Government does not draw on this young class 
during the winter. This spring recruitment of 
800,000 at the most for the German Empire alone, 
I arrive at, as follows : — 
The number of males born in the German 
Empire in 1896 and 1897 were, in round numbers, 
1,900,000. The numbers surviving after nineteen 
and twenty years were, again in 'round numbers, 
about a third less, 
. In other words, rather over one million and a 
quarter of these young men will be alive by the 
spring and early summer of next year. To apph' 
to them, especially to the younger portion of them, 
the rule of 25 per cent, for inefficients would be loo 
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