8 
LAND & WATER 
November 2, 1916 
1,200,000. It cannot upon any calculation be made to 
reach a million and a half. 
III. — That IS a replacement of one man in five, but not 
of one man in four of the existing German armies. In 
other words, of every five men, the first man who falls 
or who is sick can be replaced but the next one cannot. 
IV. — This round fif(ure of 1,310,000 to 1,320,000 
is arrived at by the consideration of four categories : 
I. — The depots. 
2. — The men capable of service before next smnmer 
not yet called. 
3. — The men now in hospital who will return cured, 
a 4. — Men capable of bearing arms, but kept back for 
necessary work within the country. 
Of these four categories only the first three are avail- 
able as a reserve of man power. These three amoimt : 
The first to some 560,000 men. 
The second to some 150,00^ men, or at the most 
160,000 men. 
The third to not more at the very most than 600,000 
men. 
The total of these is 1,310,000 to 1,320,000. 
Such is the situation of our principal enemy at the 
present moment, the opening of November 191 7. 
The Method of Proof 
My readers will next ask how figures of this sort, which 
are the basis of calculation by the responsible authorities 
of the Allied armies are obtained. 
There are very many sources of information which 
cannot, of course, be published, but those the general 
nature of which can be explained are, I think, sufficient 
to indicate the methods employed. 
We have the reports of the Intelligence Departments. 
We have the statistical basis of calculation afforded us 
by the Oflicial German returns in time of peace : Notably 
the statistical Year Books coupled with the Census of 1910. 
We have side by side with the latter a vast mass of official 
and private documentary statistical evidence regional 
and professional. We have the rate of losses calculated 
from private lists as I showed in a previous article. 
Above all, we have the observation upon the front which 
consists of the noting cff movements behind the fronts 
by air reconnaissance, the capture of documents and the 
most important category, the interrogation of prisoners. 
Upon this latter point I think that elaboration may be 
of advantage. People do not always understand how 
thorough an acquaintanceship with the enemy's numerical 
positioa can be obtained by the interrogation of prisoners 
when these are numerous and culled from very many 
points of a wide front. It is imagined that because the 
greater part will be ignorant ; because many will 
patriotically lie, and because many more will be confused 
or self-contradictory, that therefore the final result 
of such indications is of doubtful value. This is not the 
case. The thousands and thousands of answers received 
are carefully co-ordinated. The probable distinguished 
from the improbable. Numerous cases of agreement 
noted. The coincidence of even a rumour among private 
soldiers with facts known from other sources is observed 
and the corroboration of some piece of evidence which 
seems especially trustworthy by some other corresponding 
piece of evidence at a distance, is registered. 
In the early days of a campaign the process is still 
floating and in doubt. After two years it has become, in 
many of its departments, an exact science. 
Let me give the reader some idea (it is only a fragment, 
but I think it is illuminating) of the way in which was 
established, for instance, the position of class 191 7 during 
the past summer. 
The Allies are now fully instructed as to the presence 
of the whole of this class (with the exception of the 150,000 
men in the depots already mentioned) upon the front. 
I have before me and am allowed to publish a few out of 
many hundred records which establish this important 
matter. 
Thus, the exact 'position of {class 1917 in the' 368th 
regiment (belonging to the 214th division) was estab- 
lished upon the loth of last September. It was known 
that upon that date a draft of ;]oo men had arrived all 
drawn from class 1917. Not quite a month earlier, upon 
the 19th of August, the i0()th regiment from Baden, 
belonging to the 28th division, received 800 men of 
this same class 1917. The 208th regiment of the 44th 
division of reserve received, a month earlier still, a 
draft of 200 from the same class. The 167th regiment 
of the 17th division of reser\'e was discovered, at the 
beginning of October, to be then composed as to no less than 
aquarter of its effectives of this class, of whom the great(5r 
part had been drafted in since the end of August. 
I repeat, these four instances taken quite at random 
are only so many (out of several hundreds of observations, 
which I happen to have before me at the moment of 
writing. 
It would be easy to add to them, though they are only 
given for the sake of example. The 414th regiment, for 
instance (in one of the new divisions, the 204th) , had also 
a quarter of its effectives composed of the class 1917. 
The 206th regiment of the 44th division of reserve was 
recently found to have 22 per cent, of its effectives com- 
posed of this class. (In some of the depleted companies 
'as many as 60 men were lads of the 1917 class.) The 
23rd di\'ision, a Saxon one, showed in the looth regiment 
a draft of between 250 and 300 upon the 15th of Septem- 
ber, which was also of class '17. 
The 13th regiment from the 13th division gave another 
instance of the same sort. Its 5th company passing from 
Verdun to the Somme received 60 men, all class '17. 
Now the reader will appreciate how, if he will imagine 
in place of a few instances chosen at random here, 
hundreds of thousands of special questionings of 
prisoners, the truth is established. 
At any rate, the figures laid before the reader in the 
above-detailed analysis and summary table, are accurate 
within so small a margin of error that they fully inform 
our judgment, and in the chaos of wild rhetorical and 
sensational talk — some time ago absurdly gloomy, then 
much too cheerful, and always full of ups and downs — 
the very best thing we can do is to keep track of careful 
statement and calculation. 
I owe it to myself and to this paper to point out that in 
the past many detailed calculations of this sort have been 
made and have been verified in the event. 
With the exception of quite the first phase of the war 
when information was more doubtful, and when the 
enemy losses were exaggerated in all estimates, this work 
has been faithfuHy and accurately done with the aid of 
those competent to advise me. 
I think it has not been the least of the tasks undertaken 
in defence of reasonable judgment and sanity during this 
great trial. From the early summer of 1915 onwards 
oflicial statistics of this kind had acquired a certitude 
which has since only been more and more confirmed. It 
will be remembered that the dates upon which class 1916 
was called in the German Empire, the dates upon which 
the first revision of rejected men was ordered, the dates 
upon which 1917 began to be called out, the date upon 
which each of the younger classes first appeared in the 
field, and many other minor statistical details, the fruit 
of calculation, appearing in these columns during the 
last eighteen months, have been proved accurate long 
after by the event, and I hope that this detailed statement, 
which I know very well that the future will similarly 
support, may be of service to the establishment of a 
solid judgment upon the position of the principal enemy 
during the coming year. 
It is clear that the peril the enemy now runs from the 
exhaustion of his reserves — less than a quarter of his field 
armies as I have shown and probably not more than a 
tifth — will be increased by the vigorous continuation 
throughout the winter of that Western offensive, and 
indeed, of that general offensive, upon the slackening of 
which he calculates. 
He remembers the lull of a twelvemonth ago. He 
forgets that it was a lull of preparation. I think that 
in the ensuing difficult mon*hs the superiority of artillery 
in the West, and the growi'ig munitionment of the East, 
will impose such a wastage upon him that the opening of 
the season in i()i7 will find his remnant inadequate for 
that task of replacing wastage which it will have to fulfil. 
THE MOVEMENTS IN THE FIELD 
Nearly all my space this week has been used up in the 
considerable analysis of the enemy's present numerical 
position which has just been put" before the reader. I 
ha\e. therefore, a very restricted opportunity for dealing 
