august i6, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
wooded Carpathian range irom the Dorna Watra comer to the 
neighbourhood of ]'ocsani. 
So long as Czernowitz stood, numerous roads and a whole 
system of short local railways sened that centre and turned it 
into a place of supply for" everything to the south. \N'ith 
Czernowitz gone the main Sereth road anci railway become 
almost useless. They serve only to contribute supplies that 
may come through Jassy, and jassy only communicates with 
the Russian supply centres based on Kiev in the most 
devious manner through Odessa. 
At the same time the Russian abandonment of the Bukovina 
(of which Czernowitz is the capital) turns the whole Allied line 
in Moldavia into a salient, the obvious policy for reducing 
which {and driving the Russo-Roumanians out of what is left 
of Roumania) is to attack the two wings and at the same time 
to bring pressure on the critical pillar point of the Dorna Watra 
corner. It is upon this account that Mackensen is attacking 
as hard as he can northward from Focsani. Every mile of 
advance he makes, and every mile of retirement suffered by the 
Russians in the Bukovina to the north, accentuates the salient 
and makes it more and more difficult to hold Moldavia. The 
Roumanian Court has already left Jassy, and the pillar point 
of the Dorna Watra comer is yielding. At the moment of 
writing (Tuesday morning) the last news is that Mackensen 
has reached Pincin and immediately threatens the junction 
between the two parallel railway lines that serve the Molda- 
vian plain. 
It need hardly be added that the whole of this unfortunate 
situation in Xorthem Roumania is^iltimately due to the break- 
down of the nth Russian army in front of Tarnopol (now 
nearly a month old). 
. So true is it that the strength of an army depends on its 
cohesion, 'that is, on the validity of every part, and that this in 
its turn dep^mds upon universal discipline. Whether Moldavia 
willbesavedornoonly the event can show; but so much is 
certain : That only an unexpected Russian resistance in the 
so Mdes'ioo 
north can save it. Strategically, if the retirement through 
the Bukovina continues beyond the frontier. Moldavia has 
gone. 
The Importance of Calculation— II 
The Advantage* 
T think I showed clearly enough last week within how close a 
degree of accuracy we could come an these figures of belligerent 
numbers, and how legitimate was the use of. such estimates 
merely in the point of exactitude. But doubts upon the mere 
reliability of such statements (which can only arise from 
haste in reading or from imperfect appreciation of the sources) 
i^i only one half of -the trouble. The other, and perhaps the 
larger half, is the feeling that, accurate as the calculations may 
be under given conditions, those conditions change so 
abruptly and their change is itself so incalculable that time 
and tnnible are wasted in attending to any calculation at all. 
Here is an example of what I mean :' 
In the autumn of 1915 there was published in these columns 
a ver>' careful estimate of the enemy's' riumerical position. 
The size of the .\ustrG-Hungarian field army was slightly over- 
estimated from a lack, at that time, of sufficient evidence ; 
but that of the (ierman field army and its losses were given 
accurately enough because a sufficient time had elapsed to 
correct the errors made in earlier calculations at the beginning 
of the war. 
In estimating the reserves available for filling ^aps the 
estimates made at that moment allowed for a certam large 
number of civilians of military age as being necessary to the 
" running of tliecountry." Up to that moment this large num- 
Ix-r had been kept back in civilian employment. It was a 
matter of necessity that they should be so kept back ; and the 
amount of available reserve man-power was by that extent 
reduced. But shortly after this moment the enemv originated a 
totally novel practice, hitherto unknown in civilised war, and 
therefore not allowed for in any such estimates. The (iermans, 
began, at lirst timidly, afterwards more boldly, to enslave the 
l)opulations of occupied countries. It was clear that as this 
niivel policy proceeded and developed, very large numbers of 
those hitherto eliminated from the estimated reserve of man- 
power as necessary for civilian employments, would be 
released for the army. As a matter of fact the power of 
" combing out " such men continued during the whole of 
I0i'» and only came to its final limit at\^the beginning of the 
])resent year. Therefore, the estimates made in the autumn 
of 1915, though perfectly accurate for their time and 
circumstance, needed sharp revision in favour of the enemy 
within six montiis after the time they were made. 
^ Here is anotlier example. A full statement on German 
numbers was made in Land & Water early in 1916, referring 
to the various categories of German losses (numbers of dead, 
number of definitive losses, number of losses from active 
service, <>tc.) up to the \i>\. December, igiO, and it was there 
\ 
shown that the total number of dead off the gross ration 
strength was then approximately one million. The total 
definitive losses, therefore, a little over two million, and the 
losses to full active service some three million and a quarter. 
Now anyone reading that estimate (which events have proved 
to be perfectly accurate) might well have extended it when 
judgiVig it in his own mind somewhat as follows : 
" These are the losses for the first 17 mdnths of the 
war. We may take it that the same rate will continue, and 
. if th'e.war lasts as much as another 17 months we shall have 
double that number of German dead ; double that number of 
German definitive losses, and so on. We know the rate of 
German recruitment, and we see that under such circumstances 
the German lines as they now exist cannot be maintained 
throughout the fighting season of 1917." 
No such conclusion was drawn, of course, in these columns. 
That would have been prophecy, and prophecy is a thing 
which this paper, I am glad to say, has never indulged in. 
Indeed, a good deal of our space has been spent in warning 
certain contemporaries and their readers against prophecy, 
whether optimistic or the reverse. Th« spirit that talked 
of "the Russian Steam Roller " and " The Russians in Berlin 
by tl|e autumn of 1914," has no more place here than the spirit 
that talked of " a German march on India " and of ending the 
war " still looking at Vimy Ridge. ' ' 
^ Nfevertheless, it is not only conceivable but probable that 
many people would use exact and known statistics of the past 
first seventeen months of war, for the formation of a guess with 
regard to the future ; and when that future became the present 
their guess proved wrong. After another second seventeen 
months of war the German losses Ijad not doubled. Thev 
had increased by little more than another three-quarters, ro 
that there existed a sufilici en t though barely sufficient margin 
of reserve, though not for the fighting season of 1917. 
W hy was this ? Wliat had happened in the interx'af ? 
What had happened in the interval was the Russian break- 
dowji, with the consequent relief of the enemy from pretty 
well any sort of pressure over the whole of his Eastern front, 
and the corresponding rapid decline in his total casualty 
rate. 
Now it is easily comprehendible that with such experiences 
in mind (and I have only quoted two examples out of very 
many that might have been chosen) a man might say : " These 
statements of numbers, however accurate for the time in which 
they are made, are a waste of energy and mislead the reader 
because other incalculable factors are perpetually coming in, 
and they make all the difference." 
I hope to persuade my readers that this is not the c»e. 
If you so misread the war as to imagine the numerical factor to 
