April 13, 1916 
LAND & W A T K R 
particular sector at a rate superior to that which was 
perhaps calculated for it upon the other side. With the 
expenditure of men, however, it is .far otherwise. No 
reasonable calculation of the numbers at which it was 
worth while to secure the result can have allowed for the' 
immense losses already suffered, especially if we remember 
that' those losses have been suffered withrtut any corre- 
sponding result. 
\Miat those losses precisely are as a ma.\imum to date 
it is manifestly impossible to determine. The French 
authorities have been very careful to keep down in their 
ofhcial or quasi-official statement:, to ihcjiniiiiinwi estimate. 
But even so, the judgment based upon private reports and 
descriptions escapes this oflicial caution and justly tends 
to regard the (ierman real los;. as much highei' than the 
strict minimum occasionally estimated. Indeed, this 
minimiUTi as published from time to time, quite apart from 
private I'eports, confirms such a view. For instance, one 
correspondent, speaking immediately after official infor- 
mation and from all his work manifestly warning us against 
excessive estimates, has told us that the loss of the firs.t 
four weeks was certainly more than 150,000. Another, 
writing a good deal earlier, already quoted the figure 
100,000. A more recent very cautious statement issued 
in some detail to the British press discovers, the attacking 
troops actually identified to reach 450,000, puts their 
losses up to nearly a fortnight ago at about one-third of 
this number in the attacking line- plus about 50,000 
at least from losses behind the attacking line through 
artillery fire and sickness, making a total loss as late as 
that fortnight ago of 200,000. But we must remember 
with regard to such a calculation two things, first, that 
its whole object is to .correct an undue optimism and 
the legends which stories from the. front give rise to ; 
r.ocondly that the number of units actually identified 
iipon the immediate front attacked must always be less 
than the units employed. How much less we cannot 
tell, though v,e may guess it from the nature of the 
fighting. 
The identification of units upon a fighting front can only 
be arrived at in one of four ways. 
1. Tiie noting of those imits from which the dead and 
wounded discoxered upon the ground in an advance are 
drawn. 
2. Those units from which prisoners are drawn. 
3. The statements of prisoners under examination. 
4. Documents taken from the enemy. 
All these four somces, when one is strictly on the defensive 
;ind either immobile or occasionally retiring, arc obviously 
more imperfect than when one is advancing. 
Line of German Supply 
We must always remember that the attack upon Verdun 
is conditioned for the enemy by a new railway which is 
built from Spincourt to Montfaucon (crossing the Meuse 
at Dun). The existing railway by Conflans and Etain 
is directly imder observation and long range fire from the 
heights of the Meuse and very diflicuit for the enemy to 
luo. • He is really dependent ujion the new lini'. 
. This means that the main Cierman attack was con- 
demned to come from the north antl the north-east and 
north-west. It could not have a complete choice of all 
points upon the sector of Verdun. The reason why the 
enemy was thus tied to ^he twelve or fourteen miles 
upon which all his efforts ha\'e been directed, was in some 
measure liis dependence upon the 305 howitzers, the 
380 guns (a naval gun, I believe) and great 320 howitzers. 
It is true that he liad the same choice of supply by road 
as the French had, and could organise the movement 
of munitions in lorries as the French could, but his 
special dependence upon very heavy pieces has here once 
again, as throughout the campaign, affected his mobility. 
Those wlio may think tliis an odd word to use in con- 
nection with siege work would do well to note the very 
practical meaning of the word in this case. The munition- 
ment for the 305 (which piece is capable of moving along 
roads) is U^ some extent independent of the rail That is, 
the munitionment can go by rail and be transferred to the 
battery, even at some dii.tance, by lorry. But when it 
comes to the big 380 naval gun and the 420 howitzer it is 
another business. Theoretically, of course, one could 
move the shells though not the pieces without the aid of 
the rail. But in practice the handling of these enormous 
masses ties one to the railway, or to the close proximity 
of it. - 
As a matter of fact we ])robably know both the 
number and the situation of the 420's in this case. They 
ha\'e been emplaced for months upon regular platforms 
in Hingry wood, and in other portions of the big wooded 
area between Orncs and frilly. 
There was als.o a naval gun of 380 in the wood of 
Mazeray, south-west of Spincourt. 
Of the 420's there seem to be about twelve so far cm- 
placed, and it might seem that some of these would be 
shifted round westward later to deal with the front on the 
left bank of the Meuse. But I believe there is as yet no 
evidence of this. It is, at any rate, a thing worth noting 
(though no more definite than any other information in 
such a matter) that the enemy's present efforts are 
directed only to getting rid of the French positions that 
threaten him on the other side of the river. In other 
words, he wants to carry the whole of the Goose Crest, 
including, of course, the Mort Homme and Hill 304 in order 
to be quite secure in his position east of the Meuse, which 
situation arrived at, he would concentrate again upon the 
old main front from the river round to Vaux, and there, 
after an artillery preparation entirely directed against 
that sector, would launch his last main attack. 
The suggestion is that the enemy, being bound by his 
line of supply from Spincourt to Montfaucon, to attack 
from the north between Vaux and- Avocourt, means 
his main last attack to come only upon the main positions 
east of the Meuse from A to B on Sketch IV., where 
T^LUT 
Tvloatfoucoa 
"Mxlon, 
Avocourt, 
'^M-f^ 
IV 
']?iinjjes m tlioiisands ofyards 
O S JO L< ^o 
pcec-es. 380mm <P^20iaa.. lilt 
VERTUN 
Okf 'J^hziwa^-s -(III ).. 
T^^rett 
