The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1916. THE STRAIN ON GERMANY.

Southland Times, Issue 17830, 6 September 1916, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1916. THE STRAIN ON GERMANY.

One question which is necessarily much debated at the present time is whether Germany can spare men from the Western Front to strengthen her Eastern line, whiclx. is admittedly in dire peril at the present time. We do not refer to any special weakness in Germany’s old eastern line from the Carpathians to the Gulf of Riga. There the enemy was apparently strong enough to hold up the Russian offensive by a series of violent coun-ter-attacks, which, if they gained no ground at least checked the Russians’ progress. Ten days ago appearances indicated that the enemy’s defences had at last been brought into orderly arrangement and that the Russians were meeting with increasing opposition. Then came the Roumanian thunderbolt, which, as has been explained, left the enemy’s extreme right “ in the air,” and not only made it imperative that the old eastern line should be strengthened but also that new lines further south should be thrown up, not necessarily to hold Transylvania but to hold at all costs the Serbo-Bulgarian link in the trunk line from Berlin to Constantinople. This railway must be preserved in order to enable the Central Powers to tap the only reservoirs of men that now remain to them. To keep this railway safe a strong line must be established between Belgrade and the Roumanian frontier, crossing the nortb-east corner of Serbia and linking up with Bulgarian troops on the Danube. From the point between Belgrade and Orsova on which this line is established for the defence of the railway the front will extend in a north-easterly direction to the Bukowina. Where are the Central Powers to get the men necessary to establish and hold this long new front, more especially as in the Balkans there is a second front to be held, on a line drawn roughly from Valona on the coast of Albania along the northern frontier of Greece to the Struma, thence to the Aegean ? Roughly a frontier of from 460 to 500 miles that was formerly protected by the neutrality of Roumania now has to be held by armed men. Where can Germany get them ? In ordinary circumstances she would certainly have withdrawn no more men from the western front, but her present circumstances are not ordinary. In some respects they are desperate. The almost unopposed advance of the Roumanians into Transylvania proves that Austria, trusting to luck, had denuded her whole frontier south of the Bukowina of men in order to strengthen the broken lines in Eastern Galicia, thereby giving the Russiaus an opportunity for a renewed offensive. But the Germans will now be forced to run risks in the west by stripping the lines there to the minimum number of men required to hold them In order to meet the new menace in Transylvania and Bulgaria. What is the minimum number of men with which the enemy can reasonably expect to “ hold ” the Western Front ? In one of his luminous articles, in "Land and Water ” Mr Hilaire Belloc briefly set out the les-

sons which had been learnt. in the course of the war, and the first of these lessons he stated as follows ;

A modern defensive line upon which sufficient time has'been Spent-for its equipment with defensive weapons, for the examination of the ground in front of it, and for the perfecting, if riefeessary, of communications leading to it frdm the bases and of lateral communications, can be held with a minimum of about, or'a trifle less than, two men to the yard run. , That -is rather more than 3000 to the mile, which figure covers, of course, much more than the mere defensive line. Including all local reserves and also, of course, every brarich of the service in the armies holding the front, but excluding the men upon main communications. When we say that this ftilnimum of men will " hold ” a modern defensive line we mean that this is what experience has pYoVed fo "be the minimum in the present war for .the withstanding of such shocks as have been delivered when conditions of 'ar-

mament were fairly equal between the two sides.

If we assume that the enemy has. 400 miles of front to hold-in Flanders and France the minimum number of men required to hold it in the sense referred to by Mr Belloc is -1,200,000. Now, the Germans are believed to« have at least 120 divisions on the Western Front, or say 2,400,000 fighting men. It is obvious, therefore, that Mr Belloc’s minimum number is just about half the actual number of Germans on the western lines and that if tiie Germans keep an additional 750,000 men,in the west as a margin of safety, they can still spare half a million for the new lines in the east. Of course the minimum nutaber floes ’not insure safety. The Allies are how pushing back lines which are held by numbers vastly in excess of the minimum number, but the point is that the Germans are in such a position in the east that they are compelled to take risks in the wpst. They 'must send men east even at the cost of leaving the western line dangerously weak in places. They must send then east even if they have to -shorten the western, front in order to increase the number of baj r onets to the yard. The one thing that is clear and beyond, all doubt is that men must be sent east with all speed, and it also seems to-be clear that the new lines from the Bukowina through Hungary to the Serbian border at a point between Belgrade and Orsova, thence through north-eastern Serbia to the Danube about Vidin, and thence along the Danube to the Black Sea, can be manned only by exposing the western and the old eastern lines to attack hy the Allies under conditions highly’ favourable to the offensive. That men have been withdrawn from Eastern -Galicia is beyond doubt, and the natural consequence Is that Brussiloff ’is attacking with renewed vigour fromthe Stokhod to the Carpathians. It is reported that ten divisions have already been withdrawn from the western, front. The report is probably true, and on a low estimate the total number to be withdrawn will exceed twenty divisions. It is nob surprising, therefore, that renewed vigour should have been infused into the AngloFrench attack on the Somme front Germany will not be allowed to withdraw men ffom either front with iiapunity. The weakened lines will be tested and strained at every point, and for the enemy the difficulty of holding them will be enormously increased.’ Obviously Germany is called upon for' almost superhuman exertions to meet the new conditions, and the next few weeks will show how Von Hindehburg proposes to meet difficulties which appear to be overwhelming.