GERMANY'S TROOPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15931, 31 May 1915, Page 4

GERMANY'S TROOPS.

resources during WA^. THE FRENCH ANALYSIS.' ~~ ■ - i 'SIGNIFICANT FIGURES. • ENEMY LOSE 260,000 A MONTH. lavin'g set forth in' detail the remark,ble achievements of the French army 1 . he matter of material, artillery, supplies. ind transport, and showing the splendid irogress made in all these departments "S lie months which followed the beginning if the war, the French Official Review lext turns to a discussion of the situation if he German Army. Its first chapter s headed " The German Effort," and opens nth a statement as to the German iorces it the commencement of the campaign. I'lie writer says , ."The military effort of Germany at the jutset of the campaign exceeded all antilipations. Her design was to crush tae French Army in a few weeks under a tremendous mass of troops. Nothing was neglected to bring that mass together. The uunner of German army corps <n time of peace is 25. When war began the German General Staff'put in the field 3i'i the two theatres of operations: "1. As fighting troops (active, reserve, Ersatz, or Landwchr), sixty-one army "2, As troops to guard communications and territory, formations of the Landsturm. . „ "In October six and a-balf new army corps made their appearance, plus a division of sailors, in all seven corps. From the end of November to the end of December there was only an insignificant, increase, consisting of one division of sailors. In January, 1915, the number of fighting formations put into line by the German army was therefore 69 army corps, divided as follows: — Active corps 25| Reserve corps -*■ Ersatz brigades ... - ••• . ••• Reserve corps and new formation '4 Corps of Landwdhr Total •; 694 "The immense effort thus made by Germany explains itself very well if, having regard to the position of Germany at the opening of the war, one considers that of the allies. Germany desired to take advantage 'of . the circumstances which enabled her to make a simultaneous mobilisation of all her forces, a mobilisation which the three allied armies could not carry out as rapidly. . Germany wished, with the mass of troops, to. crush first of all the adversary who appeared to her the most immediately dangerous. This effort, broken for the first time on the Marne. attained its maximum at the moment cf the battle of Flanders, in which more than fifty army corps out of sixty-nine were pitted against the French, British and Belgian armies. U'ere, also, tue method followed by Germany is easily comprehensible. Germans Lose Initiative. "At the end of October the Russian danger was beginning to become pressing, and it was necessary to win a decisive victory on the western theatre of war. It was imperative to give international opinion the impression that Germany remained ill that quarter mistress of the operations. Finally it behoved her by this victory to gain the freedom to transport a large number of 8 army corps to Poland. We have seen that the battle of Flanders, instead of being a success for Germany, was a marked defeat. This defeat was fraught with results, and it dominates the present position of the German Army. The plaii3 above described of the German mobilisation, which ! had their justification in view of a . prompt victory, were calculated to become 1 extremely perilous ; from the moment that that victory failed to be gained. "From that moment, in fact, Germany lost the" initiative and the direction of the wan N And, furthermore, she was condemned to suffer the counter-effects of the enormous and precipitate effort which she had made in vain. From the point of view of her effectives and her regimental cadres, she had undergone , a . wastage which her adversaries, on the other hand, had been able to save themselves. She had, in the words of the proverb, 'put all- her eggs in one basket,' and, in : spite of her large population, she could; nc longer, owing to the immediate and sterile abuse which she had made of hei resources, pretend to regain the super, iority of numbers. She was. reduced tc facing as best she could , on both wai fronts the unceasingly increasing forces ol the allies. She had ; attained tho maximum of tension and had secured a mini mum of results. She has thus landed herself in a difficulty which will henceforward go on increasing, and which: is made clear when the wastage which hei army lias suffered is closely studied." Wastage of Effectives. Chapter 2 of this section of the review bears the headlines, "Wastage of Germar Effectives." v ' . / "The wastage of effectives is easy' t< establish. We have for the purposa tw< sources, tho official lists of losses publishet by the German General Staff, and tin notebooks, letters; and archives of soldier; and officers killed and taken prisoners These different documents show that bi the middle of January the German losse: on the two fronts were 1,800,000. men These figures are certainly less than thi reality, cans for one thing the sicl are not comprised and for another thi losses in the last battle in Poland an not included. Let us accept them, how ever; let us accept, also, that out of thesi 1,800,000 men 500,000 —this is the norma proportion— been able to rejoin afte being cured. Thus the final loss for fiv< months of the campaign lias been 1,300,00( men, or 260,000 men per month, ' Thesi figures agree exactly with what can bi ascertained when the variations of offec tives in certain regiments are examined " The total of German formations knowi at the beginning of January represented in round numbers 4,000,000 men. Accord ing to the official reports on German re cruiting, the entire resources of 'German l in men .amount to 6,000,000. But froii these 9,000,000 have to bo deducted mei employed on railways, in the police, am in certain administrations and "industries altogether 500,000 men. The total -re sources available for the war were 'there fore 8,500,000. Out of these about one half, say, 4,000,000, are now at the front The definitive losses represent at leas 1,300,000 men. The available resource; amounted, then, at the beginning of Janu ary 'o 3,200,000 men. Of what are thesi resources composed? Chiefly of men win were untrained in time of peace," thi trained reservists having almost all lef tho depots for the front. It has, more over, to be noted that out of thesi 3,200,000 men there are, according to th statistics, 800,000 who are more than' 3! years of age, and are therefore of onl' mediocre military value. "Thus there remain 2,400,000 men Finally, the category of the untrained ii peace comprises, according to the esti mates of German military authoritie themselves, one-quarter of ineffieients. Th really available resources capable of cam paigning are therefore just 2,000,000 These men, comprising the 1915, 1916, am 1917 classes, called out in anticipation constitute—and this point cannot bo to, strongly insisted upon—the total of avail able resources for the operations darini the 12 months of 1915. As to what th military value of these troops will be; con sideline: the haste with which they ' Hav been trained, the formidable ' losses sue tained in the battle of Flanders by thi newly-formed _ corps show very clearly Their military value will be limited. Wasting Reserves. •' These resources available in the cours of 1915 may be divided into three cate gories, the first available at present, th' second to be available in April, and th third between April 'and December. . Th resources at present available represent i maximum of 800,000 men, those for Apr! 500,000 men, and the ultimate resource, —classes 1916 and 1917 and untrained mei of the Landsturm between 30 and di

years of IP-present 700,000 to 800,- ■ men. >.When: it js : remembered that, ac-rfirdinS-.-to the German • documents themselves, the ■ iefinito loss each month is 260,000 men, it-is manifest that, the available resources for the year 1915 will-not suffice to fill the gaps .of- a .war of 10 months. It is then 'superabundantly established that in the matter of effectives Germany has reached the maximum of possible eS "K with the 800,000 men at present, available she "'creates, as it is certain that she is preparing, to do at this moment, fresh formations, she will be pvcventuig herself, if the war lasts another 10 months, as is admissible, from being ab.c to complete afresh : her.; old formations If hiit creates no new formations she will ha c in 1915 exactly what is necessary and no more to complete the existing units a res >• Bearing in mind the ways °< the German General Staff, one tufty suppose that, (lis regarding the eventual impossibility of in Spffig, it is still a,, creating new formations. lh. : to which Germany will expose to" m to matter of •*«*« forth and it is easy to show thai in. weakness will be still further aggravate by the wastage in the regimental cadre*. .