February lo, 1916. 
LAND AND /WATER 
the wliole character of the campaign. It is the very great 
reserve of men in all the other Allied countries which 
makes the difference. . .: 
Effect on the Enemy's Present Plans. 
Once wc have grasped this fundamental factor of the 
enemy's condition in numbers, it is clear that both his 
strategy and his policy governing strategy arc dictated 
by it. With every week that has passed since the autumn 
the enemy has clearly relied more and more upon political 
factors. He has issued threats of no real consequence, 
but threats the wildness of which were characteristic 'of 
the situation. He has trusted the licence of the Press of 
one country, the unpopularity of parliamentary govern- 
ment in another, and the ignorance of a third. He has 
greatly increased the violence of his appeals to neutrals, 
and he has done his utmost to produce dissension between 
the Allies. At the same time he has begun to protest 
against a " war of mere extermination," to explain through 
various agents of his that " neither side can really win," 
and to foster the comicallv unmilitary conception of " a 
stale-mate." ■ 
With all that political effort of his (though it is the 
most important of his present activities), we need not 
here deal except to notice that it is proof of his now play- 
ing rapidly against time. 
With the strategical effect of the same situation we 
are directly concerned. 
The Enemy Requires an Offensive. 
In such a situation as we have described, the enemy 
must necessarily attack— if lie is allowed to "do so and is 
able. He must be laying a plan for some action which, 
if it is completely successful, will give him a decision and 
which, even if it is only partially successful, will at least 
lend great and novel support to his political efforts and 
will give him a better moral basis for arranging an incon- 
clusi\-e peace. 
I do not say that such an offensive action on his 
part is nearer or further, or may not be forestalled by a 
stroke of the Allies. What I do say is that anyone stand- 
ing in the shoes of the enemy's higher command at this 
moment, must be conten^)lating somewhere a vigorous 
offensive upon a large scale. To let all the winter and 
spring go by without it would be to play directly into 
the hands of the Allies. 
To undertake such an offensive would mean a further 
sharp step in the rapid exhaustion of his numbers. But 
it would be capital well spent, even if its success \vere 
quite incomplete, so long as it had the mere political 
sffect the enemy desires. While if it were more success- 
ful ; if (to suppose an extreme case) it really gave him a 
decision, it would be remaining capital invested to the 
very best possible advantage. 
For instance, let us suppose a violent attack upon a 
broad front in the West resulting in the capture of some 
thousands of prisoners and some scores o! guns — and no 
more. Mter so incomplete an effort the enemy could count 
upon the Press in certain of the Allied countries taking it 
as a proof that his numbers were still far from exhaustion. 
He could count in the same Press upon a clamour for, let 
us say, the evacuation of Salonika, or at least growing com- 
plaints against the formation of that place d'armcs. The 
loss he would have sustained would be well worth his 
while. While if the result of such an attack were seriously 
to modify our lines on the West and to give him the occu- 
pation of any considerable further area of territory, he 
could count on a very serious effect indeed. 
The same would be true in a lesser degree of corre- 
sponding losses in the south-east or upon the Russian 
hue. 
Left to himself then, and supposing he is able to act 
or allowed to act before corresponding action upon the 
part of his opponents, the enemy must, by all calculation 
be projecting a considerable offensive movement. 
Where would such an Offensive be Delivered ? 
There are, of cour3e,.three fields in which such a 
movemjsnt can take. place. _^_^,_. _. . .._ „. „„ . .. 
There is the comparatively narrow south-eastern 
front before Salonika ; there is the Polish field : and 
RAEMAEKERS' CARTOON. 
* Desolation and heart-broken women by the n'ay- 
-side — it is the normal slate of I3elf;iuni nnder German 
ocQUpation. But we who live only such a Jew miles 
'tncay, find it all hut impossible to realise the misery 
of Belgium, and the cold calculated brutality of her 
oppressors. It is, therefore, -well that we should 
be reminded of it noxv and again. 
M. Louis Raemaekers is at present in Paris, 
where an exhibition of his cartoo)is has been opened. 
The 'well-knoivn French cartoonist, \Forain, who 
is nocv in the army, wearing his uniform, presented 
Raemaekers 'with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, 
'which M. Poincare has bestowed on him. The 
Dutch cartoonist is being feted both officially and 
tmofficially. There is a reception at the Hotel de 
Ville, a banquet at the Quai d' Or say, and a public 
reception at the Trocadero, all in his honour. His 
exhibition is as croicded in Paris as it was in London, 
and the Minister of Fine Arts has intimated toM. 
Raemaekers that the State desires to purchase several 
of his cartoons, -which it is said are to be placed in 
the Luxembourg. 
France appreciates the great work Raemaekers 
has done at its true value. 
there is the Western field. 
There is indeed a fourth possible field on the Italian 
front. A vigorous offensive there could be imagined in 
connection with the prevention of an advance from 
Salonika — for what the enemy must most fear in that 
iield is Italian co-operation towards Monastir from the 
Adriatic, and violent action on the Isonzo would paralyse 
that for the moment. But the conclusive and main 
action of the enemy could hardly be against the Italians, 
(i) because that front is exceedingly strongly held ; (2) 
because it has lying behind it a wide mass of mountains, 
the communications in which are ill suited to supply a 
great bod}' of men ; (3) still more because it is far too 
narrow to deploy a very great body of men ; and (4) 
lastly because no effort here could be really decisive. 
As for action in Mesopotamia or against Egypt, it is 
obvious that this could only be subsidiary to the main 
war. 
The Western Field is the Most Obvious. 
Now of the three main fronts thus involved, the 
strongest arguments are obviously in favour of such, an 
offensive developing in the ^^'est. This has been so clear 
to all observers that it has perhaps been the chief cause 
of the recent talk of such an offensive. The telegrams 
from Holland talking of a great concentration of guns 
and men against our lines, whether true or false, are 
negligible. The Intelligence Departments of the Allies 
upon the West have fairly full and continuous knowledge 
of the enemy movements and vague paragraphs of the 
sort mentioned are only sent for civilian consumption. 
But the solid reasons for an enemy offensive taking place 
upon the Western lines are of a different nature 'from 
mere rumour and are well worth consideration. A great 
portion of them are summed up by a French Service 
Journal, La France Militaire, in a recent issue. 
This journal begins by noting the cardinal factor in 
the whole affair, that the enemy reserves for the making 
good of wastage, particularly in Germany, arc now 
strictly limited in time. It repeats the elementarv 
truth (common to all students of the campaign), that this 
limit of time, even if the use of a proportion of inefficients 
during the winter prove successful, is strictly calculable 
and does not extend into the early summer. With spring 
it will be necessary either to call up frankly inefficient 
categories (such as the elder men hitherto immune) or 
to suffer a diminution in tlie numerical strength of the 
units at the front. 
As a consequence of this state of things the enemy 
will, according to the argument advanced in La France 
