February 14, 191 8 
Land & Water 
Enemy Reinforcement : By Hilaire Belloc 
A DOCUMENT of some importance appeared last 
week, with official authority behind it, concern- 
ing the probable extent of the enemy reinforce- 
ment upon the Western front. The account 
was a little more detailed than the general 
estimates which have appeared in these columns, but the 
round figures agree. 
We are told that there are now more than i8o and less 
than 190 Germari divisions between the Alps and the North 
Sea. This is an addition of more than twenty and less than 
thirty since last autumn. Of this number 115 or about 
60 per cent, are in line. It may be, and probably is, a 
little under 60 per cent. The remaining 40 per cent., 
or rather more than 40 per cent., are in reserve. The 
German Empire (without considering the Austrian forces) 
still retains some fifty divisions on the Russian front, of which 
we are told that twenty (or even at the maximum thirty) 
might be transferred ultimately to the"West. But the figures 
here are of less importance because they deal for the most 
part with troops that would not be used in active operations 
against the Western Allies. At any rate, the total number of 
German divisions which may appear upon the Western front 
in the fighting of 1918 will be certainly not less than 200, 
and may as a maximum rise to 220. This means, as wais 
pointed out in these columns many months ago when the 
effects of the Russian collapse were evident, an addition of 
perhaps half a million bayonets to the original strength of the 
Germans in France and Flanders. Another way of putting 
it is that it means the addition of rather less than half as 
much again to the original strength. But of that addition 
one large portion is not fit for action in any offensive and will 
not be so used. For the troojjs employed by the Germans 
on their Eastern front contained a much larger proportion 
of secondary material than those on the Western. Pretty 
well all the German heavy artillery will be massed upon the 
Western front, a matter of just under 1,800 batteries counting 
heavy artillery as anything over 100 mm., and counting 
the go mm. gun as a field piece. These figures do not 
include the coastal batteries or the pieces stUl kept in fortresses. 
So far the statement follows lines with which all students 
of the war were familiar. There is nothing new qither in the 
number of guns estimated nor in the fact that pretty well all 
the heavy artillery can, or has, come westward (or is on its 
way there), or in the general figure of a 50 per cent, increase 
(rather less) in men. These general outlines of the situation 
have been defined here, as in other responsible journals follow- 
ing the campaign, for many months past. 
The really interesting thing to notice in this official piece 
of news, and the novel thing, is the distribution of th^ reserves. 
It has been discovered that so far the German reserves have 
been spread almost evenly along the whole line. This does not 
necessarily mean that one or more concentrated efforts may 
not be made at a short date. A large proportion of the 
reserve is unusable in the front line. That part which is 
usable can be concentrated with rapidity. The factor of 
time in the preparation of an offensive of this kind is much 
more concerned with the concentration of artillery and still 
more with the concentration of its munitionment than it is 
with the concentration of infantry. For the infantry works 
with a " spear head " which is supported, reinforced, recruited 
by continuous rotation as the effort proceeds, and the spear 
head needed at the outset is but a small proportion of the 
whole. For instance, the main effort of Verdun two years 
ago was entrusted in the first three days to only six divisions. 
The unexpectedly successful blow struck last autumn on the 
Isonzo was also entrusted to six divisions ; that which 
failed in the Trentino in igr6 to another six or eight. But 
what this dispersion of the reserves does probably mean is 
that m(jre than one attack is contemplated. Indeed the 
Germans are accumulating a reserve of mere numerical man- 
power upon the West (leaving out quality) about double that 
which they exhausted in the five months of the Verdun 
failure. 
The critical point — which is also, like nearly all critical 
points in war, the doubtful one — is the enemy's power of 
munitionment. 
The elimination of Russia as a State, let alone as a belligerent 
— the great military deci.sion which the Germans have achieved 
on their Eastern front (for to dissolve the military force of 
your opponent is a decision, no matter how that dissolution 
is achieved) — has, as we have seen, given the German Empire 
alone, not counting Austria, something not much short of 
a 50 per cent, increase in its Western effectives. It has 
permitted nearly every heavy gun to go westward as well. 
The whole numerical balance of the war, as we said in these 
columns more than fojur months ago, has changed with the 
exception of munitionment. Can the increased forces the 
enem}' now has at his service against us on account of the 
Russian betrayal deliver, not only in shell but in all other 
forms of industrial product useful to his object (including the 
new weapons such as armoured gun platforms, aircraft and 
everything else), a supply commensurate to this increase in 
men ? 
That is the vital question which only the immediate future 
can answer. 
The other three factors in the great and decisive debate 
about to open are, of course, the comparative civilian ex- 
haustion on the two sides ; the comparative civilian moral ; 
and the comparative progress of sinking at sea and new 
construction to replace losses at sea. 
The Political Issue 
When there arises a sincere and vital debate upon national 
policy, no purpose is served by either party to it if arguments 
are quoted merely for the sake of argument or affirmation 
mere!}' repeated without a recital of the grounds upon which 
it is advanced. 
But the debate in which the whole nation is concerned to- 
day is not only sincere and actual beyond any other con- 
ceivable matter for discussion, but it is one whicU covers 
every individual in the community and one in which every 
individual knows himself to be directly concerned. It is a 
debate wh'ch has arisen during this last phase of exhaus- 
tion in all the belligerent countries. It is occupying the 
mind of the Germans quite as much as our own. It is, 
briefly, the opposition between a policy which seeks- — 
in spite of agony- — conclusive results to this war and a 
jxilicy of negotiated peace. We are all vitally foncemed 
with that debate. On its right solution the future of the 
nation and of every individual hangs. 
I use the words " negotiated peace " in the conversational 
sense of the term, as it is currently used to-day. I mean an 
attempted return, by negotiation with a Prussia still powerful 
and still fully armed, to the state of affairs before the war, or 
rather to that state of affairs less international rivalry and the 
perpetual peril of disaster. 
As is always the case in the final decisions of a great nation 
upon its fate, the two moods opposed to each other on this 
question are not so much represented by two bodies of men 
as by two tendencies present in the mind of nearly every man. 
There are, of course, clearly marked leaders on the one side 
and on the other, and groups formed round them ; there are 
even the beginnings of organisiition on either side. But the 
essential debate is one conducted by every man in his own 
mind, and every man (except a very few fanatics on either side) 
Vveighs for himself the respective strength of the two tendencies. 
If he is wise he will try to discover not only their strength, 
but the weight of reason which supports each. It is that 
weight of reason as apart from any mood of fatigue or forget- 
fulness which I propose to examine here. 
The war has lasted* very much longer than anyone expected 
it would at any one of its phases. It has lasted longer even 
than men expected a twelvemonth ago. It has lasted far 
longer than men conceived possible three years ago. 
The causes of this prolongation of the war are equally 
familiar. They are to. be discovered in the contrast 
between the primitive East of Europe and the highly-developed 
West. 
First came the inability of the Russian Empire to munition 
itself upon the vast scale which by the winter of 1914 was 
unexpectedly discovered necessary for modern war. Next, 
as a result of that, came the immense strain put upon a 
simple, unindustrial.andat the sanle time very diverse State 
by the great enemy victories of 1915 ; the over-running of 
Poland, the great captures of Russian prisoners, etc. 
Lastly, of course, and much more decisive of the result 
than anything that went before, came the collapse of the 
Russian State which began this time last year, proceeded 
rapidly for more than six months, and was finally consummated 
last autumn. The war after this -Eastern collapse ceased to 
be a siege. The enemy was no longer surrounded : he was no 
longer fighting upon two fronts. His hitherto rapidly in- 
creasing numerical inferiority to the Allies was suddenly 
changed to an equality with his remaining opponents, and 
perhaps even, pending the arrival of American reinforce- 
ment, to some superiority over them. 
But the causes of the disaster arc; now mere matters of 
history. It is the result which concerns us. The result- — an 
indefinite prolongation of the war — has meant the approach 
