February i, 191 7 
LAiND & WATER 
The only doubtful point is wliethcr the eittiick on Fundeni 
was not lielped by some reinforcement. But even that 
is improbable. The (ierman Press, more than a week 
before the attack on the Fundeni loop, spoke of it as the 
A'ulnerable spot where the greatest weight would be 
concentrated, and we have little reason to doubt that the 
Prussian troops towards the right of the IXth amiy here 
were occupying their original stations. 
The next thing shown by this series of offensives is 
haste : The determination, and j)erhaps the necessity, 
to effect the enemy's object in Roumania and to throw the 
Russians behind the Sercth before the end of the month. 
It is possible, as 1 have said, that the shortening of 
the time now available for separate action in this one 
held has already led to the withdrawal of certain units. 
Anyhow, the enemy remains, at the moment of writing, 
that is, at the end of the month, where he found himself 
in the hrst w(.»ek of it. For the actions of January 
5th, 6th, and 7th, which] brought him- to the Putna and 
the Sereth lines were the end of his advance across 
W'allachia, and have so far had no sequel. 
REGENT GERMAN PROPAGANDA 
.Vmid the complaints that are levelled against the 
defects of the English propaganda — and they are well 
deserved — ^we must not forget certain crudities in the 
enemy's very laborious efforts. 1 hu\e before me tliis 
week (piite a number of s])ecimens sent me from the 
I'nited States, all of them appearing within a few days 
I if the time when the mail left and one or two (in French) 
from Switzerland as well. 
One of these covers in large type the wholt' of one 
l)age of an important i)aper un the Pacilic Slu])e. It is, 
iiki- nearly all tlie.se tilings, ostensibly written Iw an 
American for Americans, but it clearly proceeds from 
the Cierinan Bureau in the Fast. This whole page turns 
upon exactly the same sort of perfectly irresponsible 
])ropliesy as were those others which 1 have 
quoted here in the past. My reacers will remember 
the gratuitous folly of the enemy in fixing an exact date 
for his entry into the town of X'erdun, which he called 
" the fall of that fortress." He tixed it for August 3rd, 
I'lXb, and he seems to be contident that ineptitudes of 
this sort can be repeated indelinitely without lo.ss of 
ci^nhdcnce. For he is sayiiii^ novj with equal detail ami 
insistence that he will be in Odessa bv next' May. 
Whether he will be in Odessa by next May or behind 
the Carpathians at that date, or where he will be, 
clearly no mortal can tell, "liut apparently he thinks 
that "this sort of highly jjarticular and really senseless 
])rophesy raises him in the eyes of neutrals. " To me, as 
T supj)ose to most students of the campaign, the thing 
is bewildering— but there it is. He must have some 
object, and at any rate that is the way he is going about it. 
-Anyone who has the leisure might do worse than 
niake a list of these pronouncements for the advantage of 
history. There was the detailed description, ai)pearing over 
the signature of Bernhardt himself, of the w ay in which the 
line in France was ifo be broken and the whole of France 
over-run in the earl\- summer of i(»i6. There was the 
almost ecpially detailed description of the overrunning 
of Lombard\-. There has further ai)peared in the last 
few weeks the simple statement that all Russian offen- 
sive power \vould be broken before this summer. J':\'en 
as I write there comes a telegram (wliich I suppose is 
a( curate) that the Prussian :\Iinister of War— who is a 
public personage and ought to weigh his words— has 
told an American interxiewer that " he is in no anxiety 
abuiit reserves of man-power, for the Central Powers 
ha\e ample to make up any wastage." 
Although this last statement is vaguer than the manv 
hundred other pieces of nonsense which have appeared 
in the last two years with the same object, it is, to people 
who care to reason, more astonishing than any. 
.\tter ail. you can projjhesy, if you like, about a 
future; w liich is still uncertain, and you mav hope that 
by the time your prophesy falls due and" is fal.silied, 
people will have forgotten it. But the rate of wastage 
and the corresponcHng reserve of man-]iow er are things 
known not only to every Government in ICurope. but to 
thousands of men who arc following thi.s war, pro- 
fessioml soldiers and laymen. The whole world knows 
pei-fectlv Weil thai f]i(> rate of real wastage is, with all 
the belligerents, between tliree and four (and nearer 
four times than three times) the rate of annual recruitment. 
There is nothing mysterious or secret about such figures. 
They are the commonplaces of the whole war. 
It is equally conmion knowledge that while the rate 
of wastage is mucii the same on a.U sides, the annual 
power of recruitment among the Allies as a whole, is, 
in round figures, double that which it is for the Central 
Powers and their dependents. When a man of Stein's 
position allows a thing like that to be printed under his 
authority, it is just as absurd as though the British 
First Lord were to tell an American interviewer that the 
efl'ect of the submarines upon tonnage was insignificant ; 
or as though the French Premier were to say tliat the 
French domestic ])roduction of steel was so large as 
amply to meet that of the enemy. 
If I am asked why the enemy does this kind of thing I 
confess I am at a loss for a reply. 
THE APPROACHING OFFENSIVE 
I have received so many letters with regard to the 
speculation in which the newspapers are indulging 
about the reopening of hostilities on a large scale in 
the West that I can hardly neglect them ; at the same time 
I must repeat what I said last week, wliich was that no 
one but the few men responsible for the conduct of the 
war have any evidence before them at all upon this 
matter, and it is further their first duty to conceal all 
tile facts they ha\'e. All newspaper .speculation ami 
prophecy, is either a repetition of deliberately projjagated 
enemy rumours or futile nonsense. 
What reserve t^ie enemy has and how gravely inferior 
that reserve is to the Allied reserxe in man-power, is 
as I have just said, common knowledge. 
The Polish recruitment has failed. That is now 
quite ceitain. If the (ierman Fmjjire chooses to call 
Class 191Q, it can, of valid boys of that class, scrape 
together perhaps 250,000 or even 300,000 for its depots, 
but as a fact it has not called iqiq, and even if it j)ro- 
l)oses to call that class to-morrow it will jiot be able to use 
any of it for at least three or four months. 
The large lines of the problem, therefore, arc per- 
fectly clear. If the enemy cannot achieve success by 
sea whether negatively by gradually strangling maritime 
communications by submarines, or ])ositively by winning 
a great naval action, his only other alternative is to 
gamble on an early offensive in the West. He cannot 
possibly get a superiority of numbers there. He mu.st take 
the odds. By taking the odds, of course, he shortens 
the war against himself badly if he loses. In other 
words, the enemy is bound to one of two things, and 
cpiite possibly may attempt both of these things (for 
they are compatible as simultaneous actions) a stroke 
by sea and a stroke in the west by land. 
I repeat, that the first, a naval operation, I am in- 
competent to analyse. It is perfectly clear on the purely 
militar\' side (as a correspondent has well said) that a 
mere raid could do nothing decisive because of the 
necessity of providing considerable artillery, and that 
therefore the only decisive maritime work which couid 
at the last gasp pre\ent the enemy going under would 
be a full \ictory over the larger units of the British lleet, 
and thereby a free hand for real invasion. 
As to the other limb of the hypothesis, the attack 
on the West, if he used pretty well all he has in the depots 
and launched it o;i a new offensive, he would still neces- 
sarily meet a numerically superior foe. He would fight 
his last light with very httle chance of success and if Ik; 
failed he would hasten the decision against him. He 
cannot concentrate anywhere in the West without our 
knowing it. He cannot concentrate anywhere in forces 
superior to the resisting j^owcr he will meet. 
'Where he will choose to concentrate, whether it be the 
Allied game to let him attack first or no, (it is entirely 
for the Allied command to choose, for it has complete 
initiati\e in the matter) , where will come the Allied c(junt( r 
strokes in case he is so allowed to break his head first, 
neither I nor any other mere student in these affairs can 
})ossibly tell, and the few who are in a position to guess 
at the unknown part of the probiem (for they know the 
rest) have it as their chief business in life to prevent 
other people hearing about it. We shall know soon 
enoush, H. Belloc 
