April 6, 1 916 
LAND tS: \V A T E R 
morniiifj; the remnant of the defendini; battahon evacuated 
the rums and estabhshed their new trenches just 
outside, behind Haucourt. _ 
There is, of course, in the description of such' tilings, 
ample room for the noblest emotion and the most powerful 
description for those who liave the ability, or whose task 
it is to dwell upon such things. Mine, here, is only to 
conjecture the driest elements of numbers, because by 
thess alone shall we be able to say that there has be'eu 
success or failure when the whole thing is cast up. 
Well, what proportion of men among this great mass 
launched against all three sides of the little Malancourt 
sahent were hit ? It is notoriously difficult e\en for men 
upon the spot to gauge the losses of an enemy, especialK" 
in night lighting. Kut'look at the mere common sense of 
the thing. You have these dense masses of men, enormous 
for the space occupied (think what twelve to lifteen 
battalions mean against r.ymething half the size of St. 
James's Park) not rushing the small area at a charge, but 
thrown back again and again, and getting in at last from 
wall to wall, after ample reinforcement. The Ciermans 
cannot possibly have lost against Malancoiut less than 
four men to the French one. They may have lost five, 
or even six. 
You have exactly the same story in one particular 
incident out of the thirty or forty attacks, small and great, 
against the Ravine of Vaux. Tiie first, second and third 
battalions of the igth Reserve Regiment of the German 
5th Army Corps came on upon March qth — say rather 
less than 3,000 men. They tried to rush just before night- 
fall the ruins of the village. They formed the advance 
body of the whole division that was attacking. Certain 
companies were, in the literal sense of the phrase, annihi- 
lated. That is quite certain, because every single mari 
accounted for by the Freiich as dead, or wounded 
upon the ground, or taker, an unwounded prisoner. 
Next day the iqth of Reserve had to be replaced not 
only by another regiment, but by another regiment of 
another corps, the 64th of the Ilird corps. 
I only give these special instances, which are dull in 
their minute detail, in order to show the kind of thing 
which is going on round Verdun. 
The French hardly ever counter-attack. They do so 
on the rarest of rare occasions, where something vital is 
concerned, like the horn of Avoccnut wood the other day, 
or the little dent made behind the fort of Douaumont last 
Sunday. Nearly all their work is simply a thin outer 
defensive that kills and wounds day after day a much 
denser enemy defensive perpetually renewed, and as per- 
petually destroyed. 
We have had precise details of the establishment of 
very many enemy companies. We have found, over 
and over again that a third of the effectives had to be 
formed of the 1916 class. In many cases two-fifths of 
the effectives were formed of the igi6 class, sometimes 
the T917 class were present. We have had similarly 
detailed proofs of companies recently reinforced and 
yet coming up for the first assaults reduced to 120 rifles. 
The losses have been as enormous as they have been 
continual. With a sufficient prolongation of them, there 
is no particular reason why the crests should not be slowly 
occupied, and even the Meuse itself reached. But only at a 
price to the enemy which will leave him exhausted. 
What then is his final object ? 
A Conjecture as to the Ultimate Object. 
I still take it that the enemy's object is mainly political. 
I tiiink he adds to it the belief that there is about to 
appear a revulsion in French feeling and that continued 
hammering will hasten it. A true strategical object now 
it is impossible to discuss. 
The enemy is perpetually telling us that his object is 
not political at all. That he has some far-reaching 
scheme in this mere rhythmic repetition of losses four or 
five times his opponents, and that on some distant day 
the great result will appear. What is it ? A new line 
west of the Meuse is no conclusion. To talk of " turning 
the frontier fortresses" is to-day meaningless. File 
luistern defence of luance t(j-day is not a line of fortresses 
but of trenches. 
I cannot but conclude that the moral effect of an 
entry into Verdun is the main German object. 
There is also the second point I have mentioned. It is 
poss'hic that the enemy believes, by some judgment he is 
forming upon tiie I'rencli temper, tliat mere luunnieriug, 
no matter at what cost to himself and no matter how small 
the French losses compared with his own, will cause the 
French moral to break. It is for him to judge and for 
the result to show whether so strange a conclusion is well 
founded. . The attack (jn Verdun has not caused him 
less than 270,000 men. It has probably cost him nearer 
300,000. He may expect to shake the confiden.e 
of the world by the entry into Verdun or to shake in a 
more restricted area the moral of the I'rench army by the 
same act — to disgust them with lighting by perpetually 
pounding. He may think it worth while to lose half a 
million. His lines will still be intact if he loses three- 
quarters of a million. But witii every fraction that he 
throws away, if his calculation of moral'' e.ffect is unwise, 
as we believe it to be tmvvise, he is throwing'tiway a calcu- 
lable portion of his remaining power to fight.' - 
The German Accounts. 
If we wish to sound the enenu'fs . inind in the 
matter we may do so both by tiie effects j^eis anxious to 
produce upon neutrals and by> the accoi^nts. jwhich he 
orders to be printed in his domcstio. press; :^j(!)jie Schiibart 
in the Allegenieijic Kinidschaii, haf.: put .l^' name to. a 
statement, certainly censored and probably ordered, and 
the gist of it is in this ;-,entencc. " We shall certainly 
take Verdun ; but it will take a long time." He then 
goes on to say that it may take jjretty well any length 
of time ; and bids us not to expect any final results on 
the western front " till perhaps next year -" 
The Deutschcs Tagczcitung tells us that "even if we 
measure only by territory occupied the effort- is well 
worth while." The Frarikjort Gazette in the matter of the 
Mort Homme first says that it has been taken and then a 
few days later says that it has been " practically " or 
" virtually " taken, because on the French maps the word 
" Mort Homme " occupies a space greater than the actual 
summit of the hill ! The Cologne Gazette a whole niouth 
ago told its readers that the I'rench paper Homme 
Echanie had been suppressed "for announcing the fall of 
Verdiln," which the French desired to conceal. 
In the matter of influencing neutral opinion we get 
exactly the same note. The district near Verdun has 
been flooded with American correspondents, one of whom 
has been told that the losses are not "-particularly severe," 
and the worthy man confirms this by telling us that he did 
not himself see any great numbers of wounded passing the 
position which had been allotted to hirii. The losses 
could anyhow be replaced. So serious a neutral organ 
as the cultured Xation of New York informs its readers 
that the (iermans can add one million new recruits to 
their present forces from the young men not yet taken 
within the course of this year. They might as well have 
said a million hippogrilYs. 
Everywhere it is the same tune. Verdun is to be 
" taken " — a phrase which means nothing now save the 
occupation of a piece of ground. The immense price 
paid is either denied or ignored. When the continuation 
of the effort begins to disturb public opinion at home the 
most extraordinary historical parallels are quoted. The 
people are told that Verdun — the mere town— is the 
" heart of France" — the official phrase has already appear- 
ed quite seriously in another Cologne paper. I have 
already pointed out the ludicrous parallel with the siege of 
Sevastopol. The word " investment " is used, as though 
of a fortress of the old fashion surrounded by a containing 
army. Another paper informs us that there is " still 
one avenue of entry left to the beleaguered fortress." 
Now all this surely means one thing. , That for some 
reason not military, or at least not directly military, the 
mere ad\-ance to the Meuse over a few miles of ground, the 
mere retirement by those few miles of an unbroken 
enemy front, is to be achieved at almost any cost — at 
almost any risk of future weakness short of a sheer local 
collapse, and therefore at almost any risk of the catas- 
trophe that would follow sooner or later if the exact 
measure of losses tolerable were passed. It is an un- 
satisfactory solution. It leaves the question hardly 
answered at all — but I can see no other. H. Bkli.oc. 
A military Rugby match has been arranged to take place 
on Saturday, April Sth, between the New Zealanders and 
South Africans, at tlie Richmond Athletic Ground. All 
))roceeds resulting from tlie match will be devoted to the 
Sailors' and Soldiers' Tobacco Fund. 
