THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1917. GERMAN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16443, 20 January 1917, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1917. GERMAN PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

The salient features of the military situation at the present time consist in the minor offensives which are being carried out by the belligerents of both sides. On the one hand, we have the German " drive" through Itoumania, an important local success which has given the Kaiser an excuse for bis Peace Note, but which has apparently reached its climax with the Russo-Rouman-ian recovery at Braila. On the other hand, we find the Russians carrying out in the Riga region an offensive which shows that all their surplus strength is not required to check Hindcnburg'a advance in Eastern Roumania; evidently the Russians possess sufficient military strength to repel the enemy aggressive in the south, and simultaneously to initiate an effective aggressive in the north. In the west, we are told that the British are harassing the Germans, from Arras to the Somme, without relaxation. But all these offensives are more or less sporadio and minor, though complete suc- 1 cess might have lifted Hindcnburg's effort in Roumania to the level of grand strategy. Their effects are merely local, and they are producing no permanent results. The great military efforts of the Allies are to come. In war, the power to take the offensive rests with the belligerent who can create a preponderance of force. At the beginning of the war, this power rested with our

enemies, but to-day that power has passed from them to us, and the time is evidently not far distant when we shall be able to take advantage of the altered military conditions. Colonel Repington, the military critic of tho London Times, has urged greater concentrations of trobps in the ■west. He estimates that the French have three million troops and the British two million troops in the field in France and Flanders, and he insists that an additional sixty divisions, or 1,200,000 troops, should be provided, presumably by Britain, in order to establish the requisite preponderance over the Germans in that theatre. There is evident anxiety on the part of the British authorities to strengthen its reserves, as is shown by the " combing " processes constantly referred to in the cabled news, but there is reason to think that Colonel Repington, temperamentally pessimistic, has underestimated both the French and British armies available on the western front. In any case, there are in Britain the extra 1,200,000 troops, whom this somewhat alarmist military writer desires to see in France, and it can be demonstrated that the preponderance of the Franco-British armies over the Germans in the west can bo raised to the proportion of six to two, which is theoretically sufficient for tho purposes of the groat aggressive now impending. Incidentally, it may be pointed out that if so great a preponderance as three to one is needed for the purpose of a successful aggressive movement, the Germans plainly have no hope of attaining success, since their disparity is known; yet they are occasionally able to concentrate, as in Roumania, a sufficient preponderance of force to enable them to gain a local, but important, success. How much more, therefore, should the Great Alliance, with its superior armies and resources, bo able to concentrate overwhelming forces at the various points where it may decide to strike its formidable blows ? American correspondents in Berlin—who send to New York only what the German Government desires to have published— that Hindenburg's plans for meeting the coming aggressive of the Allies, include a holding movement on the west front, and in the east a strong aggressive against the Russians. As the events of 1916 proved that the Franco-British lines could not be broken by the Germans, this may well be Germany's tactics. But what armies will Hindenburg have at his disposal for such purposes i He has probably no more than six million Germans and half as many Austro-Hungarians. Of his Germans it will be necessary for him to employ at least four million men in the east to enable him- to attempt there an aggressive on a grand scale. Such a disposal of his major force would leave him with not more than two million troops in the west If this number were increased to three millions by means of the mass levy, the Franco-British commanders, thanks to the strenuous exertions now being made in Britain, would still be able to array decisively preponderating forces against these three million Germans, a large number of whom must be of dubious age, All estimates of numbers are necessarily approximate, but it is cortain that by Britain's unhesitating recruitment the Franco-British combination is being . made far stronger than the German military: organisation which can be opposed to it. , Admittedly every man is needed, but since the men are forthcoming General Nivelle apd Sir Douglas Haig should be able to concentrate not all along the front, but at the points of their attack, forces preponderating in a proportion of three to one, and, if necessary, of four to one. When the British and French armies advance to make their great effort, there is every reason to hope for the satisfactory results which Mr. Lloyd George predicts for the present year.