THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1915. THE EARLY STRENGTH OF THE BELLIGERENTS.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13729, 18 March 1915, Page 4

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1915. THE EARLY STRENGTH OF THE BELLIGERENTS.

In a review of the first phase of the war, that is to say the first six months, Mr Hilaire Belloc, whose articles before and since the commencement of the war have established him as one of the first writers on military affairs in Europe, offers some interesting observations on the strength of the armies engaged. As regards the forces of Germany and Austria, he concludes that they number eight million men. The German Empire was able to put in the field in the first phase of "the war trained, equipped men of military age approaching 4,500,000. Counting men partly trained whom it could incorporate in the early operations and picked men past military age, but volunteering for service and accepted, the German Empire probably was able to put into the field during the first phase of the war 5,000,000 men. Austria-Hungary during tihe same phase put into the field about 3,000,000 men. In the case of this

latter there is more confusion than in the case of the German Empire. The Austro-Hungarians, although not quite equal to the German population (about 80 per cent., or four-fifths) do not train in proportion so large a number as the Germans. In the first great levy Austria-Hungary counted on a considerable force which would be of military quality long before the end of the first phase of the war. AuistriaHungary certainly accounted for 3,000,----000. We add the 5,000,000 of the German Empire and get 8,000,----000 for the Germanic allies in the first phase of the combat. To the west, the French forces were nominally some 4,000,000 in number, but in reality, were probably 3,000,000, what with the loss of men over a certain age in a country which trained every available man. France trained every man who was at all fit; while* Germany only trained just over half the men, but with equipment less complete than Germany, France did not stand in the first phase for more than 3,000,000. To this must be added cer-

tain Belgian forces, regular and irregular, which might be set down at 100,000, or a little more, and the far greater parti of which was sacrificed in the heroic attempt of that little nation to preserve its honour and maintain the public law of Europe. There must also be added the British contingent, consisting in origin of no more than any expeditionary force, nominally 80,000 in number, but really considerably less. But this expeditionary force was so rapidly swelled by sending out further trained bodies from Great Britain (luring the first phase—or rather before the close of it—that Great Britain must stand for a-third of a million men. There were then at the utmost 3,500,000 men in the west opposed to the Germanic powers. In the east, we must put the little, but exceedingly efficient Servian army—the whole manhood of the nation as left after two exhausting Balkan wars—at 250,000 men. What were the Russians—that is the one' indeterminate factor, and the first calculation of the total number of soldie s, regular and irregular, which Russia could nominally put into the field might be near 5,000,000. If we say that as a maximum the Russians could put forward, in the first phase of the war, 2,750,000 men, we are exaggerating, not belittling, their power. So in the grand total we find the Germanic allies, in the | middle of Europe, going to war with 8,000,000, and having against them on the west, say, 3,500,000; upon the east, barely 3,000,000. That, is the foundation stone of any calculation upon the numerical aspect of the early stages of the great war. While in the first phase the, strength of the Germanic forces has undergone a process of diminution, that of the Allies has steadily increased.