Januaiy ii, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
?f 
material the enemy's] position as contrasted with the 
AlHes is as follows : 
(a) In the mere requisites for arms and for the transport 
of troops the four main requisites are coal, steel, nitrates 
and some fuel for the internal combustion engine — ^taking 
for granted, of course, the skilled labour required for the 
production of the \'arious instruments. 
In the matter of such skilled labour, the enemy, when 
he had reached the present extension of his hues, more 
than a year ago, had a very great superiority over the 
Allies. But it is a superiority which the Allies have 
gradually caught up, for such labour is created by training. 
Further, the less skilled labour, which lies behind the 
skilled labour and is essential to it, is not available in 
superior quantities with the enemy. It is now actually 
a little inferior numerically to what the Allies can spare, 
and is becoming . more and more inferior numerically 
every day. It is, by the way, worth remarking in passing 
that the enemy's slave raids do not largely affect the 
numerical factor of labour. They are undertaken as 
pieces of bullying for what he believes to be pohtical 
effect. A Belgian is as useful turning shell in Belgium as 
he is turning shell within the old frontiers- of the German 
or Austrian Powers. 
In the plant for creating steel from iron, in his 
supplies of iron ore and in his, supplies of coal, the 
enemy enjoyed and will continue through the war 
to enjoy a very great superiority over the Allies in 
Europe, and this superiority is highly important because 
the war has shown that a successful modern offensive 
demands the very maximum output even of a highly 
industrialised country. Russia is not really industrialised. 
Italy is only partially industrialised. France is only 
partially industrialised, and it is precisely her industrial 
districts which have suffered most from the war ; a large 
proportion of her resources in this department lying in 
territory actually occupied by the enemy. England is 
very highly industrialised, but she cannot supply the full 
requirements of the Allies in surplus of their own pro- 
duction. The plant for converting iron into steel takes 
a long time to erect, and, regarding the 'Alhance as a 
whole, is still insufficient for the purposes of the war. 
Here, then, in this most important point the Alliance is 
under a cle^,r handicap. It must obtain much ore and 
steel from the world outside Europe. Its communications 
in the conveyance of these are maritime and therefore 
\ulnerable, as we saw the week before last, while the 
corresponding communications of the enemy are short, 
internal, terrestrial and absolutely secure. In this con- 
nection we must note that the Allies suffer a further 
handicap from the strain upon tonnage caused by distant 
operations of which the communications are also maritime 
and lengthy. The obtaining of the surplus raw material, 
and especially steel, from the world outside Europe' is 
secure, however, under two conditions ; 
(i) That there is no political interference with its 
purchase. 
(2) That the exchange against which purchase is made 
shall be available. 
This exchange is of four kinds. First, we receive such 
material, especially steel, against exports. The normal 
process, of course, in time of peace and still working, 
though working rather lamely, in time of war. Russia 
Avith her enormous produce for export is unfortunately 
blockaded. France is exporting httle, because of the 
dram upon her labour power produced by the necessities 
of war. England is exporting the most of the Allies, 
but far less, of course, than in normal times. Export 
alone will not suffice for exchange. 
(2) Material needed can be obtained as against stock 
owned in countries outside Europe, without export : 
Say a locomotive to pay for such, and such goods for the 
Argentine. You can obtain them by handing over to the 
Argentine a locomotive which you once owned in the 
Argentine itself, and it is by this process that the pawning 
of Transatlantic securities" has been going on. 
(3) You can pay in gold, but it is a Umited resource, 
because gold is normally only the current medium of 
exchange, or rather the 'basis of that current medium. 
When a nation takes payment in gold for goods beyond a 
certain extent, thte only effect is to raise prices and not to 
make it really richer. 
(4) (This is really the crux of the business at the 
Di-e^ent stage). You may go on credit. That is, you 
may say to the foreign nation : " Send me the goods, 
and though I cannot send you other goods in exchange 
for them now, I will bind myself to send you them when 
I begin producing again after the war." 
This fourth method of obtaining the necessary surplus 
niaterial is capable of almost indehnite expansion, but 
it depends upon a psychological factor : To wit, whether 
your customer believes that your future after the war 
will stand the strain. This consideration plays no little 
part in the elaborate German propaganda by falsehoods 
and suggestion ; much of the object of which is to con- 
vince neutrals that the AlUes cannot win and will therefore 
come out of the struggle hopelessly maimed, while the 
Central Powers will come out with all their resources 
intact. At the same time, this consideration helps us to 
understand the folly and iniquity of those who for private 
purposes have spread panic and doubt on the Allied 
side. This question of credit is the great question of the 
immediate future. 
Subsistence 
If we turn to subsistence we see the same factors at 
work, but in very different proportions. The squeeze 
in tonnage, which is the effect of the new submarine, 
coupled with the complete disregard on the part of the 
enemy of all moral contentions "in maritime war, and 
enormously emphasised by the tonnage required for dis^ 
tant expeditions, puts the Allies to grave inconvebience 
—but as yet to no more — and the greater part of the 
Alliance not even to that. But, on the other hand, the 
blockade, perpetually increasing in strictness, has reduced 
the Central Empires in this category to what are cer- 
tainly very grave straits indeed. It is not a matt^ oir 
which exhaustive statistics are procurable. At a piere 
personal guess, based on what most rehabie witnesses 
have told us, one would doubt whether this factor could 
of itself decide the war. But there is no doubt that it 
embarrasses, in a fashion to which the Alhed Nations 
show no parallel, the action of the enemy's command, 
and that it will embarrass it more and more as the year 
goes on. 
***** 
Now if we balance and weigh all these various factors 
in the problem of exhaustion, what we come to is this : 
Supposing the present access to neutral markets- to 
remain unimpaired, we match the enemy in war material,' 
though, unfortunately, in an unequal manner, increasingly 
surpassing him iii-the West, but not permanently re- 
dressing the balance in the East. 
The squeeze for tonnage progresses (even under present 
conditions, with most ships imarmed and the new sub- 
marine action not yet curbed) much less fast than the 
squeeze for subsistence in the Central Empires. And 
canceUing out all these factors, one against the other, 
which one can roughly do, at any rate for several months 
to come, there remains the dominant constant difference 
of effectives. It is the enemy's exhaustion in men, com- 
pared with the corresponding condition of the Allies 
which is, under existing conditions, the main point of 
difference, and it is that which should decide the war ; 
and decide it in a briefer period than opinion is prepared, 
perhaps, just now to believe. 
I have purposely repeated nothing here concerning 
the new tactical method in the West lest it should confuse 
the issue,. but it must not be forgotten the AlHes in the 
West have created a tactical method which makes their 
opponent waste at a greater rate than they themselves 
waste, and that at a time when the remaining store of 
men is far more important to him than to them. 
H. Belloc 
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