THE RESOURCES OF GERMANY

Evening Post, Volume xciv, Issue 73, 24 September 1917, Page 8

THE RESOURCES OF GERMANY

NEARING THE END

HER ALLIES ARE NOT AN ASSET.

In an interview recently published in the New York Times a Swiss merchant calls attention to the serious condition of Germany. His sober and exhaustive discussion bears all the earmarks of truth, and when he says that Germany's three weak spots are men, transport, and her Allies, there can be little doubt that he has stated the situation as it exists. ■ To take them in reverse order, it must be manifest Ithat her Allies are not an asset for Germany, but a growing liability. Other things being equal even the Russians can beat the Austrians, who at no time have put up much of a fight without a stiffening of German troops and German leadership. General Maude's position in Mesopotamia involves a long line of communications which must be defended. And yet the Turks have not attacked Mm at a time when the Russian support',- which he was entitled to expect, completely failed him. General Sarrail has been unmolested at Salonika, while the Bulgarians and Turks are conducting an unsuccessful campaign to extract more money from the German Government's empty coffers. And Germany's transport in three year's must have been knocked to pieces. We know we.il enough what maintenance and replacements mean, and it' is not surprising to hear that in rails, roadbed and rolling stock, the German system has lost the supreme effeotivness it enjoyed at the outbreak of the war, Awhile ib is short of men to handle the business of the roads, a duty, it need hardly be said, which could not be entrusted to prisoners. But the man-power question is by far the most serious. In 1915, Hillaire Belloc said that the German Government was understating its war,.losses, and that it had been doing so increasingly since its plans went wrong after the Battle of the Maine. . This was not a loose statement. ■He based his conclusion/*oh the reforms of German communities proud of the number of men they had given for the Fatherland, of insurance companies, friendly societies and other institutions, whose business it was to record mortality statistics. He found a striking and growing discrepancy, and all such comparisons since have shown a widening breach between the' official figures and the^ facts. The German reserves, are manifestly far less than Germany's friends would have us believe. There are two deductions which can safely be made which prov* this. If reserves had been availablegin anything like the number advertised/ is there any question that the offensive on the Eastern front would have been pushed to its limit? In his present morale, the Russian soldier could offer little resistance. But he has not been attacked, and it is clear that the Germans are no longer in a situation to undertake a new offensive., The other fact is that the British and French report prisoners of an average age of eighteen years and two months, showing that the class of' 1918 is already in the field, while the children of 1919 are under training. •It must be apparent from these facts that Germany is nearing her last resources, and that her one hope is that her adversaries may become weary and conclude a sentimental peace bofore desperate necessity compels her to throw up the sponge.—Wall-street Journal.