LAND AND WATER 
March i6, 1916. 
Ihc old abandoned fort stands. The Kt-doubts of Hardaii- 
mont on the slope of the northern hills (close to Vaux) 
arc carried, both .northern and southern crest are hard 
pressed, and though the attack can get no further 
and is checked, it is easy to conceive how observers 
behind the line and overlooking this mass of lire in the 
night should accept a rumour that the southern crest 
also had been stormed. 
1 take it that this rumour relating to the struggle 
in the darkness between Mondav and Tuesday was 
received upon the Tuesday morning in Berlin, and was 
edited and ready for sending out l>y noon. No contra- 
diction of it having been received a' the moment when 
the officials depart for the consideable midday meal of 
that city, it was duly sent out. It was received and 
transcribed, among other places in Paris, by the wireless 
and was issued in France about two o'clock in the after- 
noon. 
All this is no more than conjecture, but it seenr^ to 
me to explain what would otherwise be a particularly 
lutile piece of nonsense. 
German Losses in the Great Attack. 
While we must repeat the truth that no estimate of 
the enemy's losses can be accurately made until the 
French gi\e us their report of the completed action yet 
we should, if we care for any real basis in judgment 
beware of an error which is just as fatal to such judgment 
as the exaggeration of those losses. 
The military value of the whole thing, the German 
success or failure, will depend upon comparative losses 
at the end of the engagement, and there has been some 
tendency in the last few days to undor-estiinate the prob- 
able losses of the enemy. 
The French estimates (many of them given in private, 
and all of them as yet unofficial, but most of them de- 
tailed), put those enemy losses very high. That they are 
very nmch larger than the French stands to reason, not 
so much because the I-'rench are standing on the defensive 
(for there is a great deal of counter-offensive work) as be- 
cause the French have deliberately u^ed the whole time 
the tactic of covering with the smallest workable number of 
troops*. In some sectors, on the Goose Crest for instance, 
at Poivre Hill, in the four stages of the main retirement, 
in all the earlier work round Douaiunont, and in the 
assaults upon the escarpment south of Vaux, position 
alone must necessarilj- mean that the enemy has lost far 
more than his opponent. In other restricted areas where 
there has been a violent offensive and counter-offensive 
alternately, as in the two villages of Vaux and Douau- 
mont, and in the Crows' Wood, the losses may be more 
nearly equal. But to repeat, as a whole the enemy 
losses must be very much the higher of the two. While 
their total cannot, of course, be fixed even within a rough 
approximation, one is able to meet the principal argu- 
ment used by those who doubt or would under-estimate 
the terrible price the enemy is paying for what he hopes 
to make a decision before it is o\er. 
That principal argument is tli 't the fronts concerned 
are not sufficient to permit the dejioyment of more than 
a certain number of men, and therefore not sufficient to 
permit of more than a certain proiwrtionate loss in the 
men so deployed. 
The original attack was upon a line about 8i miles 
long. It has narrowed on the mam position to about 6.} 
mile east of the Meuse, extended by the new attacks on 
the heights south of Vaux to quite 7 miles. West of the 
Meuse it has in the last ten days developed upon a further 
line of 5 miles. There are thus altogether, if we exclude 
the minor work in the Woeuvre Plain, about 12 miles 
of front acted upon or, say roughly 20,000 odd yards. 
It is perfectly true that upon such a front you cannot use 
more than a certain number of men in any one attack. 
Moreover, as the attacks have been partial, now mainly 
upon one sector, now mainly upon another, we are con- 
cerned in any one day with a great deal less than this 
total front. 
But we should do well to note first that attacks of 
this sort in other parallel situations during the present 
•llif whole tii-sl covciiiij; line consists origiiKiUy ol bul 4 ilivLsions 
aijainsl 14 or 15, 
war have, as a fact, been exceedingly, expensive, and 
secondly that the action has not been one gradually 
" petering out " after the first main effort, but oni: 
renewed again and again and again with equal fury in 
attack by the enemy o\er now more than three week>^. 
The front at the (irand Couronue in its ultimate 
development was shorter. It was less than 10 miles long. 
That action lasted less than a week ; and yet it certainly 
cost the enemy close on 100,000 men. Or, we may take 
for another test the Allied efforts in Champagne and at 
Loos. The French losses in Chamjxigne upon an a('ti\o 
front of 12 to 13 miles, mainl\' incurred in the first few 
days, are known though not published. They were much 
less than the enemy's because the Germans held their 
front in great strength under the first bombardment and 
the attempt against the second line was checked in tinic. 
Rut they certainly do not warrant our doubting exceed- 
ingly heavy losses for the (iermans in this attack upon 
Verdun, wJiich has included scores of separate assaults, 
stretched over now 25 days. 
We have the cost of the contemporary Britisli 
attack known under the name of Loos exactly. We 
know liovv heavy it was ; between 45,000 and 30,000 men. 
Yet the British were not actrively using 23 divisions nor 
were they attacking on a front of such extent, still less 
did they prolong the action for so considerable a time. 
The conception that the (ierman losses must be 
lighter than the estimate, because they should, if as 
heavy as the French say, have already entailed exhaustion 
is not thought out. If the enemy really thinks he can 
get a decision it is worth his while to spend for thj 
moment not 100,000 or 150,000 or even 200,000 men, 
but 300,000- — or more. Because he has only disclosed 
in action about 300,000 does not moan that he has 
not fed from reserves or has not far niore men concen- 
trated in the region. 
New Evidence of German Exhaustion. 
It will be remembered in this connection that we 
have always insisted in this journal — and especially in 
those moments of artifically produced depression wliicli 
affected this country two or three months ago — that ^he 
exhaustion of the ( ierman efficient reserves (with the 
exception of classes '16 and '17) would compel the enemy 
to begin filling up gaps with inefficients during the whole 
winter if he desired to keep the two young classes back 
for an offensive in the spring of this year. 
We further hazarded the opinion — for it was not like 
the first a matter of positive proof but only of judgment— 
thai with the best will in the world they would not be able 
to keep the young classes back for long. That the effect of 
putting too many inefficients inlo the drafts ivould be so danger- 
ous and so obvious that they would be compelled much earlier 
than they desired to bring the two young classes into action. 
■ We now have positive evidence that what was then 
only a piece of judgment was right. The French have 
already taken many prisoners of the '16 classes in front 
of Verdun, and what is worth noting, though too much 
stress should not be laid upon it, the number of these lads 
has increased in the later stages of the battle. What 
is of more significance is that in soma cases these drafts 
of the '16 class have been very large indeed. Three 
whole companies in one regiment appear to have been 
formed of this class alone. 
But there is something more. A certain number of 
jjrisoners (a few, it is true) have been taken belonging 
to the class '17, and that is an omen which no one can over- 
look. The jirisoncrs were not \oiunteers, they were 
regularly enrolled. 
When it was known that the efficient reserves were 
drjing up in the last two months of 1913 the general 
suggestion was that with a cautious defensive policy the 
first categories of inefficients would be used in drafts 
during the early months of iqi6, and the classes '16 
and '17 would not appear until the end of April at the 
earliest. I beli\e this paper was the only one to suggest 
that the strain could not.be endured throughout the winter 
and that the young classes would certainly be called upon 
in the exhaustion of efficient reserves before the winter 
was over. Now that, long b -fore the winter is over, the 
enemy has chosen to gamble with what remains, the last 
classes have had to be called. 
8 
