flank. He may do more than hold. Ho may 
recapture the hne of the lower Tserna river which 
the French had crossed. There was a small 
Serbian force (B) with a small British contingent 
attached to it still holding (on Sunday last) the 
Babouna Pass. The French (C) on the same 
day still held the lower valley of the Tserna and 
the village and station of Gradsko. But the 
Bulgarians, in far superior numbers, are putting 
their whole strength into pressing back these 
southern forces, and the odds are so far in their 
favour. 
The general situation may be grasped in this 
sketch map No. II, especially if the reader will 
remember that the whole district is a wild tangle 
of mountains, and that only where he sees a rail- 
way or a main road is the movement of large 
bodies of men possible, though there are plains 
roughly corresponding to the towns b}' which they 
are nourished. Thus Kalkandele or Tetovo (which 
the enemy fights so hard to retain, because it cuts 
all communication between south and north) stands 
on the edge of such a plain ; a small, narrow, 
oblong surrounded by high mountains. Uskub, 
Kumanovo and Veles all stand in a triangle of 
more or less open country. Prisrend is at the edge 
of a similarly open upland. 
But in following the strategics of the war in 
this corner, the only things that count are the 
railways and the roads. We must regard the mass 
of the rest as difficult mountain land. 
So long as the Bulgaians hold us in the South 
before Veles they prevent all our efforts to succour, 
and to effect a junction with , the main Serbian Army 
in the Northern Highlands ; they stand between the 
two. But there is more than this. By seizing 
Tetovo and holding to it, they prevent any sup- 
plies getting to the main Serbian armies by road 
from Monastir and by the mountain tracks through 
Prisrend. More and more is it proving true that 
the war here is a Bulgarian war. The Austro- 
German force is insufficient, it advances extremely 
slowly, it accounts for quite insignificant numbers 
of Serbian prisoners even by pressing in civilians 
to swell the number. It is dependent entirely 
on its heavy guns. 
One point we must not forget is the fact that 
the German army here, not being under the 
restraint of Western criticism and observation, 
is acting with a barbarism unknown even in its 
Polish atrocities. There would be no value in 
mentioning this in a military survey, save for the 
following strictly military consequence : The 
civihan population, flying from those general 
massacres, which now accompany any German 
advance in Slav countries, gravely accentuates 
the problem of supply for the main Serbian army. 
That pro>)lem of supply remains the unknown factor 
and, at tlae same time, the most serious one. If the 
Serbian army cannot be supplied, the Balkan 
fighting resolves itself into a desperate attempt 
by the comparatively small Allied forces to hold, 
with no prospect of eidvance, a strip of Southern 
territory, the mere holding of which has no 
ritrategic value. If, on the other hand, the Serbian 
Army and people can be fed, and the former 
supplied with e\en small arm ammunition in- 
definitely, then, as the Allied force grows, there 
is a chance of a junction, of combined movement, 
and even of an aavance towards the North. 
But it is difficult to see how the tide can really 
turn unless or ui.til a Ru^;sian or an Italian force 
appears. 
THE GERMAN CENSUS. 
Several correspondents have suggested that 
we might, be deceived as to German reserves of 
man power by the pubUcation of false figures m the 
German census. 
The hypothesis does not seem tenable for a 
moment. 
In the first place an elaborate set of figures, 
with hundreds of cross divisions, could not be 
falsified in this fashion without detection. It 
would be a work quite beyond the power of any 
Bureau. . 
In the second place there is no probability 
a priori oi such a thing being done. The ordinary 
work of any great government department is at 
once a gigantic and a straightforward affair. You 
cannot take hundreds of men into your confidence, 
nor make a whole department of State act as one 
fraudulent man. Prussian morals permit the 
forgery of documents in the interests of the State, 
but they cannot work miracles in lying, any more 
than the patient clumsiness of their organisation 
can work miracles in creating reserves. 
iVgain, false census figures would be imme- 
diately susceptible of correction and discovery. 
You cannot considerablv falsify country returns, 
for their falsitv would "be patent to the most 
superficial observer, while the returns of large 
towns are controlled by the known rate of in- 
habited urban areas. Given the type of building 
and the type of street and open space of a town 
like Frankfurt, for instance, and you can tell 
from its area upon the map, more or less, what its 
population must be. 
Finally, there is the argument which, if the 
public were properly instructed would be the most 
popularly known, as it is by far the most important 
fact in the whole development of the war, that 
German numbers are not unexpectedly maintained, 
but are, as a fact, giving out exactly as was calcu- 
lated. The rate of wastage, the proportion of 
efficient reserves, of inefficients, of total units, all 
these correspond with the official census figures, 
military and civil, of the German Empire. The 
French General Staff, having carefully calculated 
the rate of wastage and the opportunities for re- 
cruitment, decided that the efficient reserves would 
peter out somewhere about the present time. They 
are manifestly petering out, and the first batches 
of inefficients coming in ; so long, that is, as the 
classes 'i6 and '17 are kept back. 
Excluding these classes, a total German 
efficient mobilisable force of a little over eight 
million at the very utmost has lost from all 
causes counting "permanent margin of tempor- 
ary losses" quite three million and a half, and 
yet has to keep going units in the field of over 
three million with auxiliary services hardly less 
than a million. The sum is simple and the 
result obvious. 
A SUGGESTION. 
In this connection, perhaps I may be allowed 
to make a suggestion. Why should not the 
authorities in this country publish, as the French 
Government does, statements from time to time 
for the information of opinion ? The Press for 
some reason I have never understood fails to 
compile these statements. The public does 
not get any clear conception of the fundamentals 
of the camp^'-^n. 
12 
