8 
Land & Water 
April 25, 19 I 8 
end of the present fighting season, but not before. As the 
enemy is working at the highest possible pressure — that is, 
spending men at the maximum rate — all that he really has 
to consider as available in the crisis of this spring and summer 
is the sum of more than 170, but less than 180 divisions. 
Of these he has put in since March 21st at least 106 — 
perhaps no. Many of them have been put in twice, and 
some of them even three times ; but for the moment we 
are only considering the total number of divisions available. 
Fresh divisions not yet used leave him a balance of some- 
thing between 60 and 70 divisions. 
The exhaustion of all fresh divisions docs not mean the 
exhaustion of an army. A division "put through the mill" 
is not destroyed — it is only weakened. Nevertheless, it is 
by the "fresh" divisions remaining that one measures the 
comparative reserve strength of two opponents, for he that 
has the largest such group in hand at the critical moment 
should win. 
The enemy, like ourselves, has to hold a long line as well a 
to mass upon the sectors of active engagement. He must, 
therefore, always have a certain proportion of his total kept 
out of the battle upon those lines ; but this does not mean 
that his divisions upon what are called "the quiet sectors" 
form no part of his reserve. They do. They can be brought 
in one after the other, and their place taken by " tired divi- 
sions" withdrawn from the battle. 
We may say, then, that the enemy has in hand a reserve 
of some sixty to seventy divisions at the present moment, 
and this statement, as applied to the limits of this fighting 
season and of these great actions (which he evidently intends 
to be decisive one way or the other), is mathematically true. 
It is mere waste of time to argue against people who think 
that there is some miraculous method of increasing the 
number, just as it would be waste of time to argue against 
what exactly the same people would be saying if they were 
in one of their opposite fits, to wit, that the German force 
in reserve was smaller than it is. The enemy has from 
sixty to seventy fresh divisions wliich he can use in various 
fashions according to what his plan may be, and on his use 
of them, as compared with the Allied use of theirs, will 
depend the result. 
Alternative Offensive Methods 
Now, there are two ways in which you may choose to use 
reserves when you are on the offensive, and two ways in 
which you may choose, or may be compelled, to use reserves 
when you are on the defensive. These two ways are apparent 
all through mihtary liistory in either case, in the case of the 
offensive and in the case of the defensive, whether you are 
dealing with the smaillest tactical operations or with the largest 
strategic ones. 
You may definitely ear-mark a proportion of your forces, 
set them aside to be used at a critical moment which you 
foresee coming, and then launch them to obtain your decision 
at that moment. That was Napoleon's usual method, which 
he used with success time after time ; which he hesitated 
(perhaps wrongly) to use at Borodino, and which he used 
too late at Waterloo. Or you may feed in your reserve 
continually using it as a reservoir with the tap always on, 
maintaining your rate of expenditure pretty well the same 
throughout your operations, and approaching your limit of 
exhaustion by regular steps. 
Let us see the advantages and disadvantages of each method 
in the case both of the offensive and of the defensive. 
If you are on the offensive, and you think that your success 
under the circumstances can be obtained by an immediate 
and maximum expense of energy, you adopt the second plan. 
You cannot put in all your men at once, but ydu put them 
in as fast as ever you can, and you use your reserve as a 
reservoir from which you draw at top speed and without 
cessation in the hope that a favourable decision will be 
obtained before your limit of exhaustion is reached. In 
the alternative case you judge that continuous pressure dis- 
tributed over some time will put him into a condition in 
which at a particular moment a sudden and much more 
violent blow will break him up. In most cases, and in this 
case of the German attack, the offensive is free to choose the 
one method or the other. 
In the case of the defensive the problem is nearly always 
to keep as large a reserve as you can, for as long a time as 
you can, and meanwhile to hold yoi^r enemy with as small a 
force as you dare. But the defensive has not the same 
choice as the offensive here. That phrase "as small a force 
as you dare" is the kernel of the whole business. You may 
say : " I will hold with only twenty units, and keep ten 
back ; I tlunk the twenty are enough to hold and exhaust 
the attack." If the twenty prove not to be enough, and a 
weak sector gets into trouble so that the line looks like 
breaking, gets badly pushed back, loses great numbers of 
men and material, etc., then, willy-nilly, you find yourself 
compelled to draw upon the balance which you had kept 
back for action when your attacking enemy should be 
exhausted. 
If your enemy by his attack compels you to exhaust the 
whole of your reserve within the limits of the action, while 
he has still fresh troops for assault in hand, he will win. 
But if you manage to hold with less forces against him, 
costing him (as he is the attacking party) much heavier 
losses than your own ; and if you thus find yourself at 
the end of the process, with a balance of fresh troops 
still in hand, while he has reached the limits of his, you 
will win. 
In the light of this simple contrast the present battle is 
plain enough, and indeed its character has been emphasized 
over and over again without much difference by the two 
opponents in their Press, and even in their official pro- 
nouncements. 
The Germans are working upon the first system of the 
offensive. That is perfectly clear. They seek to obtain as 
rapid a decision as possible with a continuous and very 
high expenditure in men. Never was an army more thor- 
oughly committed to this system than is the German Army 
at the present moment. So obvious is this that we find 
the first German blow delivered not only with more than 
half the total number of infantry available for all purposes, 
but with the very best units. 
The last tremendous attempt to break the Western line 
in front of Amiens was made on April 4th, after more than 
a fortnight of the heaviest possible fighting and after losses 
involving certainly a quarter, and probably more, of the 
eissailants. 
The second blow began immediately afterwards with the 
bombardment of April 8th in the north and the infantry 
attack at dawn on April 9th. It continued from that day 
to last Thursday without any intermission, and fresh troops 
were perpetually being called up to replace broken divisions, 
and were thrown daily. The enem}' so acts because he 
calculates that this continued effort will, before his limits 
of exhaustion are reached, have brought all that there is 
for defence against him into line. He knows as ^yell as we 
do that if his calculation fails he is defeated. For he has 
not in one short month put two-thirds of his available strength 
through the mill without meaning to do the trick this season 
or never. 
It is, on the other hand, the firm calculation of the Allies 
— that is, of their higher command — apparent in everything 
they have done, in the comparatively small forces with 
which they have held this tremendous onslaught ; in the 
choice of the vital points for resisting it, and, above all, in 
the frequent but necessary exhortations to patience which 
' they have given to the civilian population upon which they 
repose, that at the end of the effort they will still have in 
hand a sufficiency of fresh forces when the enemy shall, 
though still possessed of very large bodies, have none not 
yet put under the ordeal. 
In these circumstances it is, or should be, grasped by 
every publicist that his duty is to confirm public opinion. 
The test of character is a defensive, and the proof of folly is 
panic and impatience under that test. 
A defensive deliberately adopted and biding its time, 
perhaps for months, is the hardest trial through which an army 
and the nation behind it can be put. 
Anyone who in the midst of a defensive battle — or, to be 
more accurate, during the defensive phase of a great battle — 
tries to act behind the soldiers, or, in spite of the soldiers, 
butts in with inane amateur suggestion, vents a personal 
spite, or, still worse, attempts some private profit to be 
obtained through excitement at the expense of the nation, 
is almost like one who spreads disaffection or disorder in a 
besieged fortress. The only difference is this : The case of 
a besieged fortress, every one understands, and therefore, 
short of actual treason, it is a case in which every one does 
what he can to keep out the enemy. Mere ignorance and 
mere folly would there have little chance of appearance. 
But the nature of a great action in which the first phase is 
necessarily a prolonged and difficult defensive — the way in 
which that first phase is the necessary and inevitable condition 
of final victory — is less generally understood. By the mass 
of your politicians and wire-pullers it is not understood at 
all. These men should therefore be told sharply, and their 
dupes more gently, that to hurry or to disturb the operations 
of the defensive phase is in effect, though, of course, not in 
motive, exactly the same as direct treason. Our whole duty 
— and, after all, an easy and a simple one — is to stand by. 
H. Belloc. 
