April 25, iqi8 
Land 6c Water 
them. There was something like a local panic, some of the 
men offering to surrender even as they advanced, and the 
whole at last breaking back for the cover of the wood in 
disorder. As may be imagined, under such conditions in 
what was now broad daylight, those who fled were nearly 
all destroyed before they reached the edge of the wood, 
close as this cover was. A few prisoners, some 200 or 300, 
were taken on the canal itself. 
Upon this second failure — which was complete before 
8 a.m. — the attempt to cross the canal that day was 
abandoned and the main effort had failed. Meanwhile, 
upon the two wings, towards Robccq upon our left 
and Givenchy upon our extreme right, the whole day 
was filled with a very violent struggle. Certain advanced 
posts round Givenchy changed hands many times, but at 
the end of the day the " pillar " on which the whole of this 
front depends, stood firm with the same trace in front of it 
as had been held at the beginning, sav;e for the loss of two 
outposts. Upon the right in front of Robecq the enemj% 
made a most determined effort to advance, chiefly con- 
ducted by his i6th division, and was also there completely. 
checked. 
At the close of this effort, therefore, the line stood as it 
had stood at its opening. The obstacle of the. waterway 
was intact. Robecq upon the left and the far more important 
point of Givenchy on the right were both held. Neither 
side could claim ground. But the severe repulse of so intense 
an effort will form a landmark in the story of this battle. 
Though this was the principal work of the Thursday, 
heavy fighting was, of course, proceeding elsewhere upon the 
northern face of the sahent. There was a strong effort to 
advance beyond Meterem, which failed. The ruins of that 
Uttle place remain a No Man's Land, and apparently the 
sHghtly rising ground to the north, which used to have a 
windmill upon it, and is known as Hill 62, is not yet in the 
hands of the enemj'. To the south, where Merris is in his 
hands, there was a slight Alhed advance. 
The third scene of special action was upon the front between 
Bailleul and Dranoutre. Here no advance was effected. 
The fourth region of effort, though very heavily pressed, 
could hardly have been expected to succeed, but must rather 
have been in the nature of a containing action, for it was 
pressed right upon the steepish and wooded slopes of Mount 
Kemmel itself. However, whether it were a side-issue or 
no, it was engaged with not less than two divisions, one of 
them fresh, and at a particularly heavy expense, which 
could be the better noted from the fact that the whole field 
here is a gradual and even rise up the slopes of Kemmel 
right under the eyes of the observation-posts above. 
So heavy had been the loss in men and the futile expense 
in energy of this Thursday that the whole of the next three 
days — last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — were passed by 
the enemy without any serious effort to attack along the 
whole of the line. The British took occasion of this lull to 
effect upon the second day, the Saturday, a rectification of 
the line in front of Givenchy and Festubert, where a couple 
of advance-posts had been rushed by the enemy two days 
before. Beyond that there was nothing to report. 
The Meaning of Reserves 
AFTER more than a month of the most intense effort 
upon the part of the enemy, an effort far more intense 
than any that has been made before in any phase of 
this war by any belligerent, and therefore an effort of exceed- 
ingly rapid exhaustion, there is still a necessity for making 
clear the fundamental point of all which is that of reserves. 
The governing principle of the whole matter is this : No 
party to any struggle can put in his whole strength at once : 
he can only act tjfirough a number of successive moments. 
Whatever you have in hand at any given moment still 
fresh, not yet engaged, is in the most general sense of the 
term, your reserve. 
That reserve, then, always existing to some degree in 
general form up to the last moment of a conflict, is given a 
particular form by the commander when he calculates its 
amounts and apportions its station. It enters into his plan 
at any given, moment as a factor separate from the troojjs 
actually engaged at that moment. As we shall see, it can 
be used in various ways, kept back for one blow at the end, 
dribbled out, thrust in quite early, etc., and it is largely upon 
the calculation of which way of using it is best that military 
success depends. 
In the present great struggle the units in which you count 
your reserve are great numbers of divisions; you say "a 
reserve of 50 divisions," etc., and a division is, for nearly all 
the belligerents engaged to-day in the West, nominally to 
be measured as 9,000 bayonets. In practice, with deductions 
for services out of the field, for inevitable delays in recruit- 
ment, for occasional temporary disabilities, etc., it is 8,000 
or somewhat less. You must measure in bayonets — that is, 
in infantry— because although your other arms largely 
increase the total, and are each essential ; and although 
some of them — notably the artillery — may on occasion 
suffer more than the infantry ; and although the power 
both of the attack and of defence is also controlled by the 
weight of artillery ; yet the one great measure of strength, 
the one great element that is used up, and the using up of 
which is the test of the whole, is the infantry. 
Both parties have an income as well as an expenditure in 
divisions ; therefore, you cannot estabhsh a fixed limit in 
time and say : "We are only .concerned with the expenditure 
up to such and such a date, and our reserve can be exactly 
measured at this moment by the numbers remaining in hand 
between it and the final date." But this income is obviously 
of less importance as the rate of wastage increases. 
Next, let it be noted that a revenue in men — that is, in 
divisions — may come in various ways. It may come in 
continuously or it may come in by big lumps twice a year, 
or even only once a year. It may be increasing rapidly on 
the one side while it is constant or diminishing on the other — 
and so forth. All these modification^ affect the issue of 
reserves. 
One power is getting its recruitment by yearly classes ; 
it will have incorporated nearly all the men of the 1919 
class before it can incorporate the next class of the 1920 
men. Another Power takes every lad as he reaches the 
age of 18, and trains small batches successively, enjoying 
thus a continuous income. The system once matured can 
only with difficulty be changed. Yet another Power (such 
was Great Britain two years ago, such is America to-day) 
has a prospect of a rapidly increasing income in men. The 
rate at which it is receiving at a given moment is less than 
the rate at which it will be receiving four months hence, 
and that in its turn much less than the rate at which it will 
be receiving eight months hence. 
With all these obvious preliminaries clearly before us, we 
can approach the particular point we are studying — that is, 
the situation of the two groups in the West during the present 
crisis and the meaning of the word "reserves" as appUed 
to them. 
The enemy has for effective use upon the West about 
— or perhaps just over — 170 divisions-. The actual number 
on which he can count in the West as a total is now a little 
over 200 divisions. But he will not be able to use more 
than 170 or 175 of these because the balance are not of a 
composition suitable for the tremendous strain involved. 
Call it 180 divisions at a maximum, and you have a figure 
certainly beyond the mark. 
Can this figure be materially enlarged in future ? It 
cannot, for reasons we have already seen in these columns. 
The small active balance of the German armies is needed in 
the East even under present conditions. The succour that 
Austria-Hungary can afford is very small. That Power is 
not now more than one-third as strong as her Ally. She 
also has to act upon the East, and, unless we are misinformed, 
is compelled to maintain the great mass of her forces upon 
the ItaUan front. It has been said that Austria could not, 
in the course of this fighting season, lend her ally more than 
ten di\dsions. That is the figure given even by those who 
desire, for whatever reason, to put at the utmost the forces 
against us, and it is certainly not under-estimated. As a 
fact, we have seen no Austrian divisions against us yet, 
though we have seen plenty of Austrian guns, and the 
Austrian infantry is not of a type that would be kept for 
final use on account of any superior excellence of theirs over 
the Prussian. There may be Austrian forces in the West 
behind the Unes, but they cannot appreciably affect the 
issue. 
There remains annual recruitment. The annual income 
of the German Empire in men is about half a niiUion. It is 
probably in practice a little less ; but half a million is the 
round figure to take. These lads provide, by the time they 
are trained and incorporated, the equivalent of 35 divisions. 
All class 1919 has been incorporated long ago. Part of 1920 
is being incorporated, but it is the bulk of 1920 which we 
have to consider. It has already been suminoned for some 
weeks ; it will be examined and put in full training imme- 
diately. It can begin to appear in active units towards the 
