LAND & WATER 
May 1 8, 1916 
ALTERNATIVES BEFORE THE ENEMY 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THE enemy has lost the battle of Verdun ; he 
has — it should be presumed— the men left for 
one more great offensive, if not upon the same 
scale, at least in force. He must make such an 
offensive because his rapidly approaching limit in resources 
of men, his more distant limit of resources in supply, 
condemn him to it. 
Let us see what alternatives he has in the matter. 
\\e begin with the present — and very advanced — stage 
of his bloody defeat upon the Meuse. 
It is a phenomenon which you will find in any other 
form of conflict when the beaten party tries to go on 
showing fight too long. One might generalise further 
and say that it is a phenomenon you may see in any form 
of energy expended beyond the moment of its highest 
efficiency. You will see it in the wobbling of a top and 
you will see it in the successively declining " spurts " 
of the runner who has misjudged a long course and is 
pumped out before the end of it. 
Phases of the Verdum Action 
In the particular case of this Verdun sector we have 
now enough e.xperience to establish something like a 
regular rhythm governing the business. When the 
original " head " of shell which permitted a more or less 
continuous bombardment was all shot away, the first 
phase of the action — prepared for nearly two months — 
ended : and there came a period which could be prolonged 
for as many weeks, or months, as the enemy's supply of 
men would last — or at least as long as the French chose 
to stand on the defensive. During this second phase 
each effort of the Germans had to be prepared by a pre- 
ceding period of accumulation in material and of re- 
organisation and recruitment in men. Very roughly 
speaking the time that could be devoted to intensive 
effort was to the time required to prepare that effort as 
about 5 to I. An interval of ten days prepared and per- 
mitted an intensive effort of 48 hours ; an interval of a 
fortnight was followed by something like three days of 
effort. Such a rough rule is, of course, modified in a 
thousand ways, and by nothing more than the difference 
in the numbers of effectives with which each effort was 
made. But that seems to have been about the pro- 
portion. The enemy's command had to build up men 
and munitions during five days for each day of expense 
in the same. He may, if he will, launch any number of 
new attacks against the critical points of the present 
deferisive line — Hills 295 and 304, Avocourt Wood, 
Vau.x ravine and hill, Poivre hill, Haudromont farm. 
He can at an absurd expense in men make slight advances 
anywhere. But in proportion to the strength of each 
such effort he is thus condemned to a ruinously high 
price in time. 
The date on which the battle of Verdun can be regarded 
as definitely won was, my readers will probably remember, 
April 9th; or, to be accurate, the close of the great attack 
on that day. 
It was then that General Petain issued his Order of the 
Day congratulating the soldiers upon their efforts and 
marking the close of the decisive period. That the battle 
would be won and that everything was tending that way, 
had been apparent very long before, but that is the day 
on which one can fix as the terminal point. 
Since then we have seen these successive lulls and intense 
efforts beating a pulse. The last intensive bombardment 
began upon May :5rd, followed by the futile infantry action 
of May 5th. These lines are written upon fucsdnv, 
^lay i6th. There has been nothing of any consequence 
in the interval. Tiic enemy may be accumulating 
further shell and bringing up fresh divisions, or recon- 
stituting divisions already used and broken, but if he docs 
so I think it will be found that the effort he makes will 
pretty well correspond to the rhythmical proportion just 
arrived at. He will use up in time about five days of 
preparation to one of action and the price so paid in 
time is now disastrous. 
We may take advantage of such a lull in the operations 
to consider the war as a whole and to estimate the enemy's 
position for the near future. Very many of my corre- 
spondents have asked me to make such an estimate 
when an opportunity should be afforded by some pause 
in the main operations, and they have lately added to this 
request frequent suggestions that I should reply in detail 
to the more ridiculous statements put about by those who 
work in this country for the exaggeration of the enemy's 
power. 
The two foundations of any estimate are, of course, 
an estimate of men and an estimate of the power of 
munitionment and supply, including in the latter 
material for industry and maintenance of population as 
well as material directly used in war. 
The general situation of both those elements at the 
present moment is well known and need only be stated. 
There are in this war, from the point of view of man- 
power, two distinct groups. There is the group of what 
may be called the " fully mobilised coOntries," and there 
is the group, the members of which have, for various 
reasons, not yet put forth a maximum effort in man- 
power. 
In the first group we put the French Republic, the 
German Empire, the Austro- Hungarian Empire, the 
Bulgarians and the Serbians. Every one of these nations, 
irom the first day it entered the war, had the whole of its 
available man-power organised, could calculate with 
precision how long " normal methods of recruitment" would 
last it at a given rate of wastage, and what "abnormal 
methods of recruitment " would yield — particularly 
the numbers of the " immature classes " (1916 and ic)i7) 
which would ultimately be drawn upon should the war 
be prolonged beyond the close of the year 1915. 
Eliminating for the moment Bulgaria and Serbia, and 
considering only the three major members of this group, 
we know what the condition of exhaustion is, and we 
know it by the very simple test of remarking the neces- 
sities under which each fully mobilised power finds itself 
of calling upon the last drafts of recruitment. 
Approaching End of Reserves 
The position is briefly this. 
All three powers are approachinj? the end of their 
reserves in men — that is. of the numbers over and above 
those necessa!ry to keeping of their armies in the field. 
All three powers have already fallen back u]ion the 
" abnormal methods of recruitment," and particularly 
upon the calling up of the youngest classes normally 
regarded as " immature " and below the military age. 
But though these three powers are all near the 
limits of recruitment as compared with the other group of 
powers which still have large reserves, they are by no 
means neck and neck. Reduced as the margins are in 
each, there is still a difference, giving an ampler margin 
to one and a lesser margin to another, though the margin 
is in all three cases narrow. 
The Austro-Hungarian Power is the most exhausted 
of the three. It owes this misfortune to a number of 
causes. 
The excellence and persistence of the Italian artillery 
work upon the narrow but densely crowded Gorizia front 
is one cause ; the terrible cliniatic conditions of the 
Carpathian fighting last year is another ; the very bad 
defeats suffered at the beginning of the war are a third ; 
the disaffection and consequent desertion or mishandling 
of Slav troops, especially in the earfier part of the cam- 
j)aign, is a fourth. At an}' rate, whatever weight we 
allow lo each of these causes, and to others which may 
have contributed to the result, we know that Austro- 
Hungary is at the present moment the most heavily hit 
of all the belligerent powers in the matter of men. She 
has put men up to 55 under contribution for military 
work of sorts (though, of course, there can be no ci\iestion of 
using these older classes in the field) . She has long ago used 
her I(ji6 class and has now many weeks ago put portions 
