i.'cccmber ij,. 1917 
LAi>^U & WATER 
L'noflicial o?.tiinates havr sugf^vstea as many as 25 (rcrmaii divi- 
sion in action upon this front, and ctrta^ity-th«ic liaVc Iwcn 
more than 20. Altliough there was an erement-of surprise, 
tltereiore, upon tlie soutliern hnih of the saUent ii; tlie lirst 
(lay of the great counter-offensive, No\em)>er ,>)th, the main 
factor in the German success was the weight of numbers, and 
this in its turn leads back, as does everything that has hap- 
pened during the last three months, to the l^etrayal of the 
Allied cause by the gang of International Anarchists which 
has seized pwwer in;what was once tlie capital ol Russia. 
No serious connnentary upon the war can now be of any 
\'ahie that does not make this feature the pi\ot of all that is 
■to come. The enem\' through the -latter dcvi-lopments ot 
the Russian Revolution has acquired, .for the first time in 
two years and more, a definite and increasing numerical 
superiority upon the West. 
It is not possible to state, save upon the very broa(i,est 
lines, what this transformation of the war means, but upon 
those verv broad lines an a ttem])t can be made. ,, 
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The liasterji front, in its olt] conditions, accounted for about 
one- third of the r,crman and about one half of the Austrian 
forces in men. In artillery we must ..suppose tJiat the field 
pieces were heavily <lin.inished in number compared witli 
their concentration upon the West, and we may be certain 
that most of the ]ica\'y pieces were withdrawn during the 
siininier. lor it must lia\e been tar mure clear to tne enemy's 
Intelligence Departments than it was to general observation 
in the West that the internal condition of Russia made 
the transjxjrt and accumulation of lieavy material by the 
Russians impossible, apart fnjin the fact that there was but 
little heavy material to accnnnilate or to transport. The 
enemy may be regarded, therefore, as already, in possessi»ii 
n|)on the \\'est of that superiority in heavy guns to which 
liis \-erv large captures in Italv have so. considerably added. 
The immediate future will increase his munitionment for 
those pieces but h^inlly their number. Tlie priiKipal change, 
therefore, is in numbers of men. Now, so far as these are 
concirned, we have first the imknown factor of the Russian 
Civil War. It is clear that the Eastern front cannot be 
wholly disregarded by the euemv. One may describe 
it in a general jihra.se as being "eliminated" in the sense 
that there has Ijceii no pressure there for many months, 
tliat over great portions of it an armistice has been concluded ; 
that during the conr.se of a civil war certainlv no attack upon 
the enemy will take jjlace, and tliat even if the National forces 
siiould o\ercome thi' Anarchists with t' eir international — oi 
rather anti-national -leadership, it world be a long time be- 
fore even a Jocal ])re.ssure could be exercised. \t is njne 
the less incredible that a state of affairs should soon aris; in 
which the enemy sliall be able to lia\e this line. completely. 
What lias he to spare from it? It is a mere vague estimate, 
])reteiidin.!; tc) iKjthing more tlian guess work, if one may 
suggest sixty divisions or theii equivalent as a maximum 
reservoir of man-power -and Heaven knows that is a great 
enough weight in the balance ! The Germans liad, when 
the movement began, aliout eighty divisions in the liast, 
and of these eiglitv perhaps one-lialf were of material they 
Could safel.v use for active service against the Western Allies. 
The .\ustrians liad about half as much again, a larger pro- 
portion of xyhicii, however, were of good material, partly 
liecause it was upon the southern .Austrian end of the Eastern 
line that the greatest danger of new fighting existed, and 
partly because j)olitical considerations dopjanded specia 
precautions here. If we allow a total of half these. numbeis, 
it would seem a reasonable estimate, though over wJiat time 
sucii a drain would last and whether it would be carried on 
to its maximum of e.xliaustion, only the future can show. 
Xor do we know how much may not already have appeared 
against Italy or in France, and consequently what rcdjiccd 
balance may remain. 
Beyond these very genera! considerations there is really 
nothing to be said. The rest is rhetoric whicli is worthless, or 
vivid descriptions of incidents in fighting, which, are the func- 
tions of eye-witnesses and correspondents, and not of a general 
survey of the campaign.- 
The Capture of Jerusalem 
General .Mlenby's entry into Jerusalem has, even more tlian 
most other events of the war, a political aspect sharply divided 
from its military a.sf)ect. The ixjlitical as])ect is sufficiently 
obviou^, and it iscomforting to add, sufficiently important. 
The two towns which, for widely different reasons, stand out 
in the Eastern imagination as representative of the extended 
Turkish power, are Baghdad and Jerusalem. Both are now 
in British hands ; an<l the latter is a sx'inlx)! of far higher 
significance than the former, because it appeals not only to 
the political imagination of men, but' to their religious tradi- 
tions and to the whole of their past. Pifrtiier, it appeals 
not only to the Eastern world, but to tlic whole of Europe. 
■.\11, however, that can be said upi)n this political aspect <»f 
tlie matter has been said in our press and does not strictly 
Concern a connnentary upon the military side of tlu- war. 
The military aspect 0/ the event is this : After lie had lost 
the railway the enenu' held the road;leading northward out of 
Jerusalem to Shechem until he had e\aciiated his stores, men 
and guns from the south. It is onl\_ snbsecpient to his 
(•vacuation of tliesi> southern points, inclttding Jerusalem, that 
the British force has entered that town ; but the success is 
the fruit of that lf)cal decision obtaintst by the British armv 
m the line Gaza-Beersheba, the consc-tiirei'ice of which was that 
rapid ad\ance all along the s<^a-plain tv^icli gave us the , rail- 
way, and with the railway tlie ultimate (Jccupation of Southern 
Palestine, / . „'•.. 
We must not forget in this connection ^hat this fine work 
has reposed upon the excellence of the British engineers. .\s 
in the case of the corresponding success in the capture of 
Baghdad, the foundation of the whoU> fthing has been the 
supreme excellence of this branch of the British Service, and 
the reader may mark that when the stoiy of the campaign 
■ is written, the way in which suj>ply was rendered possible 
across the dest^rt and continued up, closely following a large 
force nuiving with considerable rapidity, Vill be the chief part 
of the stftr^-. " _ 
It remains to be coniectured where the next Turkish liin 
