NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15820, 18 January 1915, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

DURATION OF THE WAR. Colonel Feyler, the distinguished Swiss military critic, in the Journal deals with the question of the duration of the war. He does not venture on any date, but confines himself to an extremely interesting estimate and comparison of tho resources, material and moral of the two contending groups of Powers. He begins by the pronouncement that in a war the end can only come through the conviction forced by one belligerent on the other that further effort would be useless. Everything points, he says, to this exhaustion point being reached first by the AustroGerman coalition. The vital centres of the three principal allied armies are each capable of a longe resistance. Further, as tho Powers Lave sworn not to conclude a separate peace, before their enemies can hope for a victorious issue we must assume that the allies have in Franco been driven south of the Loire, that England is threatened at home (an assumption which involve* the destruction of her fleet), and that the Russian armies have been annihilated before Petrograd or Moscow. Nothing less than this incredible task must be accomplished by Germany before her arms can be victoriou .. The very statement of this hypothesis is, considers Colonel Feyler, already a reductio ad absurd urn. The victory of the allies, then, is not open to question ; only its date is in doubt. Colonel Feyler's conclusion is that the war will not end before the allies have invaded German soil, and will last even after such invasion, till the moral of the Gorman people can no longer stand out against the disillusionment of a defeat which it has never 30 far judged, ' and does not even noy judge, possible. ' In other words, the duration of the war depends on psychological conditions, which are always ticklish and elusive things to deal with. Colonel Feyler being no prophet, but a sound and cautious military critic,"do?s not, therefore, commit himself j to any pre-oonstruction of the calendar of 1915. * GERMAN AIR SERVICE. Tho losses in the German air service have been extraordinarily heavy. No late figures are available, but some idea of the havoc wrought by the allies in this direction may bo gleaned from the fact that up to October 15 no less than 52 German pilots had been killed or were missing. The Germans apparently came to the conclusion at the end of October that their Tanbes were not to be compared with the air craft of the allies, for it was announced that they had completely given up constructing them. There are several kinds of Taubes, but they are all monoplanes, and the curve of the wings gives them the bird-like appearance that prompted their name. Now the Germans are constructing nothing but biplanes, based on the French model. Though less speedy than the monoplane, the biplane is much more stable, and hit for hit is far less likely to sustain crippling injury. It is said that the most important German builders are turning out 14 biplanes a week. But even with German machines of equal merit, the allies can afford to view the situation with equanimity. It is the human factor that counts, and the French and British airmen long ago established a personal superiority over their German rivals. ]

" GLADSTONE OF THE BALKANS."

M. Nicolas Pasitch, the Serbian Premier, who is forming a new Ministry, is well known for his sentiments of friendship towards England. He is a convinced Russophile, and his belief that Serbia's national aspirations could only be realised through the assistance of Russia brought him in the eighties into strenuous conflict with King Milan. 'party to which he was then attached was arrested, and he himself only escaped by taking refuge in Bulgaria, a fact which later gave rise to the calumny that he had assisted Bulgaria against his own country during the war of 1885. After the assassination of King Alexander, M. Pasitch again became Premier, and has since then practically been the uncrowned King of Serbia. He has been ' styled the " Gladstone of the Balkans," an appellation of which he is said to be very proud. THE BAR AT THE FRONT. The legal profession ha 6 rallied magnificently round the flag, and the current issue of the Law Journal contains a list -of over 550 names of barristers who have already joined the forces. Among those we note names of Second Lieutenant -Bucknill, Surrey Yeomanry; SecondLieutenant Buckmaster, Duke of Cornwall s Light Infantry; Second-Lieutenant Chitty, 6th London R.F.A. ; SecondLieutenant Danckwerts, Yorkshire Yeomanry; Captain Edward Duke, Headquarters Staff, War Office; SecondLieutenant Gathome-Hardy, 4th Royal Berks; Lieutenant Gore-Brown, Poet Office Rifles: and Colonel the Hon. Victor Russell, Bedfordshire Regiment. I Among the members of the Bar who are j also M.P.'s, Mr. Felix Cassell is returned as in the 19th County of London, Mr. Hamar Greenwood as captain of the 2nd Regiment Reserve Cavalry, and Mr. F. E. Smith as Major, General Staff. Since the compilation of this list, Mr. Hamar Greenwood has been appointed to command a battalion of the new WeLsh Army, and Mr. Harold Smith will shortly receive a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.