October 12, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
This position has the further advantage ot possessing 
as a lateral communication immediately behind it one of 
the very few roads of the Dobrudja, running from Anzacca 
through Enghez and Cazilmurat. It has doubtless been 
continued by this time to the sea. 
Meanwhile, it is by no means sure that Mackensen's 
right, entrenched though it is and reposing upon the sea, 
is secure. We have so very little information, and the 
little we have is so vague, that we know no more than the 
fact that there has been a certain movement here, a slight 
retirement since the beginning of the month on the part 
of the enemy and a slight advance upon the part of our 
Allies. But the mere fact that the line has not com- 
pletely settled down is interesting and is worth watching. 
We should never forget that apparently motionless lines 
of trenches to which so many months in the west have 
accustomed us simply mean that for a given front secure 
upon both flanks a certain minimum of men is available 
on the defensive. Unless those two conditions are present 
—the impossibility of turning either end of the line and 
the presence of a sufficient minimum to hold it throughout 
its whole extent — the apparent deadlock of trench warfare 
is impossible. 
Now Mackensen is acting like a man who is 
certain that there will be no landing behind him 
from the sea and no permanent bridgehead secured 
behind him by which the Roumanians can cross the 
Danube. But though he clearly takes these conditions 
for granted, they are not among the self-evident things 
of this great campaign. They are guess work, and they 
are a hazard. The Roumanians have been able to cross 
the Danube and, whether they established a bridgehead 
and then lost it, or merely intended a raid upon depots 
and successfully accomplished it, at any rate they showed 
that the crossing of the river was possible to them, and 
they retired without any appreciable loss of men or of , 
• .naterial. And the reason they could act thus was that 
there are not enough men under Mackensen's command to 
hold his Dobrudja front and at the same time completely 
watch the Danube. 
The same character of uncertainty applies to the Black 
Sea flank. Landings from the sea have proved difficult 
in some parts of this great war, impossible in others ; 
but only because there was in every case an ample suffi- 
ciency of tr_oops to oppose such a landing. 
It is when we come to this question of a supply of troops 
that the uncertain charactei of the enemy position in the 
Dobrudja is most apparent. The mere line from the river 
to the sea can hardly be held on the defensive with less 
than tlie equivalent of six divisions. The Salonika offen- 
si\-e can hardly be met with much less than the equivalent 
of ten : and even so that offensive is not contained. The 
Bulgarians have lost, as we have just seen, the bend 
of the Czerna ; a hundred miles away to the east they have 
had to withdraw from the Struma line, their forces there 
being insufficient to meet the British pressure. And yet 
they have with the balance of their forces somehow to 
guarantee the whole front of the Danube and the shore 
of the Black Sea, against Allies whose reserve of numbers 
is indefinitely large, and whose only problem is the rate 
of equipment and munitionment for the exploitation of 
those numbers. 
The same question of numbers affects the other Rou- 
manian front, the Carpathian one. Our Roumanian 
Ally suffers from the absence of anv good lateral com- 
munication along the base of the chain on the Roumanian 
side. His enemy conversely enjoys the power by the use 
of excellent lateral communications on his side of doubling 
the striking power of his forces. He can move a mass of 
manceuvre first to one point and then to another along the 
edge of the main chain with rapidity, and strike at the 
Roumanian columns first at the mouth of one pass 
and then at another. Each blow has given him 
increasing success. In his last one guns of position 
were abandoned by the Roumanians to the number 
of 13, and that is a serious proof of reverse. But we 
must never forget that this work is being done with limited 
forces. What can be spared from facing the intense 
Russian pressure to the north and the vital necessities 
of the Western front is only just sufficient for the task, 
and when one of the best Continental critics said the other 
day that the Bulgarian and Austro-(;erman action against 
Roumania was essentially defensive, the phrase, though 
perhaps a little exaggerated, contained a core of truth. 
We have indications from time 10 nine of what the 
strain upon the enemy's numbers is. We know it from 
calculation, for we knew that he has already put in a 
great mass of his 1917 class in Germany and pretty 
well all of it in Austria-Hungary ; that he has warned 
all and called up pari of his 1918 class in the one Empire, 
and called it all up in the other. We know that the 
French have not had to put a single man of 1917 into the 
field yet, and has not so much as warned 1918. But 
calculation of this sort, though much the surest basis for 
judgment, does not strike the imagination in the same way 
that actual experience does. 
Manufacturing of Divisions 
Now we have recently had such actual experience 
upon the West. We know that the enemy had — not in 
repose, but at any rate behind the lines — exactly two 
divisions left to bring up without borrowing from the 
quieter sections of the front. One of these was the 6th 
Bavarian division at Lille. They have had to bring it 
up. It first appeared, I believe, upon the 28th of Sep- 
tember, or, at any rate, the 17th regiment which belongs 
to it was identified upon that date — nor should we 
overlook the fact that when the 26th regiment (of the 7th 
division), had to be relieved upon the heights just above 
the Ancre, north of the main Bapaume road, the units 
identified as relieving it were the first and the second 
regiments of the 2nd Naval division. 
There is much more than this. The apparently new 
units which the enemy has hurried into the line are pieced 
together w'ith a haste and an incongruity that clearly 
betrays the intensity of the pressure from which he is 
suffering. When an apparently new division was formed 
the other day and thrown into the Sommc furnace under 
the number 212, it was discovered to be in part composed 
of the 20th regiment drawn from the old 6th division, 
the 3rd corps : That famous Brandenburg corps which 
was knocked to pieces in front of Verdun in March, 
and was withdrawn for months from the field. 
How was the gap in the 3rd corps made good ? 
By the simple but most insufficient expedient of 
borrowing a company from each of the remaining five 
regiments, adding a certain number of the 1917 class and 
calling it a new regiment ; the only really new material 
being the fraction taken from the depots. This same 212th 
nominally new division also contained the 98th regiment 
drawn from the old 5th corps. What took the place of 
the gStli in the 5th corps thus depleted ? A " new " 
regiment which was numbered 395. But how was that 
" new " regiment built up ? Again by the simple 
process of borrowing one company each from all the other 
regiments of the corps. 
The 214th division (these apparently novel units all 
start with the number two hundred) which was one of 
those mauled in the big counter-attack of the 20th of 
September was a similar hotch-potch of old material. 
The three regiments composing • it all came from the 
Meuse and the Woeuvre, not from recruitment within 
the country'. The enemy simply risked stretching the line 
in the Woeuvre a little thinner, patched together an ap- 
parently new unit and threw it upon the Somme — there 
to be broken. Exactly the same thing happened when 
the 74th regiment of Reserve was recently taken from 
the Argonne to help constitute the so-called " new " 
213th division. The 74th of reserve was an old sorely 
tried body, the gap it left was precariously filled 
up by stretching out its neighbours, the 92nd reserve on 
its right and the 73rd reserve on its left. 
Here is another example. Both divisions of the 12th 
corps were hurriedly summoned to meet the French 
attack — which none the less succeeded — at the southern 
end of the Sommc line, I think about three weeks ago, 
or possibly a little more. They were drawn from the 
Aisne, rather to the east of the country which was held 
by the British forces at the beginning of the war. How 
was the gap made good ? By units drawn from no less 
than eight other divisions. 
I am not suggesting that these so-called " new " units 
are given their titles with the object of deceiving the 
Allies or domestic opinion at home in Germany. It is 
impossible, of course, to deceive the Allies in the matter 
because in such fighting as that upon the S^omme with its 
