LAND & WATER 
October 4, 1917 
The Second Blow in Flanders 
By Hilaire Belloc 
Before' considering the details of the action fought 
during Tuesda\'. Wednesday, and Thursday last 
upon the British front, it is well to establish again 
the nature of the present position. Though we 
can forecast nothing of its future it is of the highest interest 
because at anv moment it may become critical for the enemy. 
The i)osition is this : The Central Empires and their Allies 
have all told, some ten million men in uniform, and rather 
over six million of them organised as hghting forces in the field. 
The balance, with the e.xception of all the men in depot, do not, 
and will not form anv part of the lighting force either now or 
in the future. Of these forces the Gemian Empire provides, 
as it has provided for many months past, one-half and most 
of the men in hospital. 
It has 239 divisions in the field. Exactly liow many men 
a (rerman division counts on the average at the present we 
cannot tell to within a few units, but it is somethmg 
under 12,000. The number of battalions of infantry which 
is included in a present German division is rarely more than 
nine, thougli there are a sufficient number of exceptions and 
independent bodies to bring the total number of battalions 
to 2.314, which is the present number of German battalions. 
Of "thtsse 2,334 battalions, 1.369 are upon the West against 
tlie French and English. 
,As to the exact average strength of a German battalion at 
this moment we, again, are not informed with exact precision, 
but we know it within fairly close limits, and we can say with- 
out grave error on either side that some 700 bayonets upon 
the average is very near the mark. In other words, ^ the 
phrase a " German battahon ',' signifies to-day about Jtjths 
the strength it signified during the first month of the war. 
We then have about 950.000 German bayonets, but less 
than a million, upon the \\ estern front. The mere statement 
of that number in connection with a line over 500 miles long 
and with the opponents it has to meet is sufficient to explain 
why the enemy now stands upon an increasingly anxious 
defensive. In "material the handicap is still heavier^ and 
the difference is increasing. 
Now to this main aspect of the situation we must add a 
second — the enemy's anxiety uiwn the question of man-power 
for the future is also increasing. He happens for the moment 
tf) be passing through a temporary crisis wliich we must 
not exaggerate. He has nothing of class 1918 left in his 
depots, and he is only just beginning to bring into the field 
Class 1919, three-quarters of which have now had about 
lour months training. This " bridge " between the two 
classes mav provoke a momentary exceptional strain, but it 
cannot be permanent, and may be neglected. What is per- 
manent and serious for the enemy is the fact that the rate of 
•loss, as compared with his Western opponents — even excluding 
•the Americans — is growing. It is probably not growing posi- 
tively : but it is growing relatively to the corresponding loss 
tipon the other side. The whole of the German class 1918 has 
passed through the fire this summer, while the corresponding 
F'iench class has beenjn barracks the whole time, and is still 
in barracks, and not to be put into the field until later, (ier- 
many will already have lost many boys out of class 191 9 
through sickness, death, wounds and capture this autumn 
and winter before the French youths, a year their senior, come 
under fire at all. In other words, the German Empire, which 
was, onh' nine months ago, a year behind the l-'rench in men, 
is now a vpar and a quarter behind tliein. This comparison 
with the French shows nothing but the position against tin- 
most exhausted of the Western Allies. The position of the 
English and Italian recruitment is far more favourable. 
Now. under these circumstances the enemy has been com- 
pelled to a strittly defensive policy. The thing is a necessary 
consequence of the general situation, and of what is properly 
called politics apart " the last phase of the war. " It is 
no more than repetition to state it. It is obvious to every eye. 
But a strictly defensive policy in the old days, when artillery 
was supplementary to infantjy, meant something very 
different from what it means to-day. when artillery conquers 
and infantry occupies. Too much of our present conceptions 
of a defensive are based upon _tlie old model, and we forget 
that a modern defensive line faced with the modem develop- 
■ ment and power of artillery, and of other mechanical and 
chemical contrivances which are but the extension of artillery, 
cannot stand fixed up to the breaking point as the old siege 
liiK' did. It must give before it breaks, and it can postpone 
breaking point by making it self " ela.<tic," it may save 
itself from breaking by perpetual limited methodical retire- 
ment. Continued successive and comparatively small retire- 
ments, step by step, where there is ample space to play 
with, and where no grave political or strategical consequences 
follow upon retreat, is a- policy which may conceivably be 
maintained for a very long time. But upon the Western 
front, the space with which the enemy can " play " is very 
limited, and botii political and strategic circumstances 
severely limit his power of retirement without disaster. On 
the jjoiitical side liis great asset is that he is fighting upon 
foreign, and especially upon French territory. He is per- 
petually harping upon this " asset,"" and he has at this stage 
in the "fighting the right to do so. It makes the task of 
maintaining internal discipline po.ssible, and at the same time 
it enables him to work hard at the game of persuading neutra 
and even belligerent fools that there is a stalemate. So 
much for the Political advantage which his retirement would 
destroy. He would similarly suffer on the Strategic side, for 
his position in the West covers, but only immediately covers, 
certain of his main sources of supply in iron and coal, and a 
strip of the Belgian coast, which though not essential to his 
submarine campaign and his use of mines, is very valuable 
to the same. 
Hold on Materials 
Now, to retire even with elasticity, that is, without allowing 
his line to be broken, upon the salient in front ( f Ypres, and 
to do so with anv rapidity, is to render \ery shortly his hold upon 
the sea-coast, and his hold upon Lille and the coal and iron 
to the south, impossible. If he merely stood up to each 
successive blow, lost the crescent it was designed to occupy, 
and so, week by week or fortnight by fortnight, went back- 
wards, he would certainly be compelled to a general retirement 
before the end of the year, with all the tremendous conse- 
quences at home, in neutral countries and among the Allies, 
in material power and in moral of his army which that retire- 
ment would mean. 
Let us see what alternative he has before him to regular 
and cumulative, retirement of this sort. 
He call do one of two things. He can make the progress 
of superbr opponents difficult by holding his first lines in 
strength and by gambling against their withstanding most 
of the successful shocks delivered against them. That was 
what he did last year upon the Somme. The danger of 
pressure from Russia Vv-as then still considerable, but he was 
far better off in men than he is now,, and in spite of the very 
great expense of this method he gambleil upon it. 
The gamble was, successful inasmuch as .it enabled 
him to hold out unbroken to tlK' winter of last year, when the 
weather stopped the active offensive, blit it compelled him 
to a very earnest, though futile public bid for peace in 
December, followed in -March "by an inevitable retirement. 
- This retirement from the great salient of Noyon was not 
strategically disadvantagecnis, though politically be regretted 
it. It. straightened and shortened his line and made him 
sacrifice nothing of material or strategic importance. 
In the fighting of this summer and autuinn he might have 
continued this method. He did not do so because the British 
superiority in guns and munitionment of eyer>' kind is now 
not only' so great, but so rapidly increasing that what 
was dangeroush- expensive on the Somme would have been 
disastrous in Flanders. He has been therefore compelled 
gradually to adopt a new method. It is a method of numerous 
isolated posts which hold the front line with a minimum of 
men : of artillery drawn behind the front lines much further 
than it used to be ; in other words, deliberately sacrificing the 
front line to the blow the opponent launches, but trusting to 
the power of the counter-attack to restore the-position, or at 
any rate check his enemy's advance. The gamble here is 
upon the proportion of losses such a method may involve. 
The counter-attack has always been and always will be, 
but to use it in this particular' way for the recoitery of a belt 
of territory- sacrificed is nov.4 and tentative. You lose in 
yielding to the first blow men, material and moral— above 
all moral ; von graxely risk much greater losses if >our 
counter-attack fails. The loss in material indeed is not very 
great. You do not lose guns as tlie\- were lost in the fighting 
of last year, but you lose men in quantities and your men 
lose heart. ... 
Still, it is the only way left. Comparatively r.-tpid yielding 
