HOW WE STAND IN THE WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVI, Issue 16227, 24 March 1917, Page 14

HOW WE STAND IN THE WAR.

THE ALLIES' DEBIT AOT) CREDIT - . ACCOUNTS. 1 EFFECTS OF THE BLOCKADE. Discussing the conditions under which the Allies entered /1917, Mr Hilaire Belloc, in "Land and Water," maintains his characteristic optimism. Taking first what he calls "the debit side," he points out that we suffer from three great drawbacks. jL. Length and vulnerability of communications. • 2. Physical separation, between East - and West. 3." Confederacy. As to the first of these, he points out that the Allies' communications are in the main maritime, and therefore perpetually vulnerable. One main branch of the Russian communications, for instance, is nearly miles long, and another is nearly 3000 miles long and interrupted by Arctic ice. As to-the second point, co-ordination can to some extent rectify the the disability—as in the great offensives by Russia and Italy last June; this, however, does not replace true unity of action. The third matter is a moral point, and M. Belloc mentions the creation of the huge British Army as "an object lesson in the separate moral qualities and separate political genius, of one out of the four Allies." But a confederation has the obvious disadvantage of replacing immediate decision by conference and single action by multiple action. Coming to the credit side, which "much more than compensates for these drawbacks," Mr Belloc also divides this into three: 1. The Blockade. \. . ; 2. The absence of combined effort. 3. The exhaustion of effectives. THE BLOCKADE. On the question of the blockade, Mr Belloc writes: "It is simply true that that process has now reached a point beyond which it cannot be extended. The blockade is as full and as severe, as we can hop& to make it until political conditions shall change and until the last phase of the war shall leave no neutral with any illusion as to its outcome. The blockade, at its present stage, does not compel peace. But what'the blockade does is to embarrass the enemy very severely, politically and materially, and j that embarrassment is increasing 'and ! cumulative. That is the value of the blockade, and the value is very high. The enemy is red, but he is insufficiently fed, that is true even of some portions of his armed; forces. He is not sufficiently munitioned; he has all the main material that he requires but he has to use it under a heavy and an'increasing strain; politically he has been compelled to experiments in his universal military control, and those experiments hava broken down. "It is in the last phase of the war that this crack in his organisation will develop. But it is already apparent and it is serious. "There is another aspect of the blockade which is sometimes forgotten. It antedates by many weeks the point of exhaustion because the enemy, at least North Germany, must consider not only her exhaustion in supplies at any particular moment, but the time that will be required to restock after her defeat. Were she prepared to capitulate to-morrow, it would be some months before she could resume, in the mere matter of food, her normal life, and two or three before the present strain would be relieved at all. In other words, she will- not relieve that strain even at the moment she capitulates. It would only be relieved long after,' and thus the moment when the. strain can no longer be borne is ante-dated." ' ■ ■ ." WHERE PRUSSIANISM FAILS. Discussing the second point, viz., "absence or combined effort,'' Mir Belloc contrasts the fiasco of tlie Austrian Trentino advance, which was planned by Prussia .and led to complete collapse, in; Galicia,, with the success of the: Allies on the Somme. Of the latter he says: ■'.'■'

"The Alliance has elaborated, particularly in ; the West, a new tactical method which will win the war. It was.! almost created this summer. We saw it rapidly increasing in value upon thte Somme as the summer proceeued. Its characteristic is its inhiction by a local offensive of greater losses upon the defence by far than, the offensive suffers."

The moral foundation is the fact that the Alliance is a combination of talent, method, and experience. On the other hand, everything the enemy does is Prussian. "There has been nothing fundamentally new,since the Aisne."

The exhaustion of effectives Sir Belloc thinks the most important point of all. "It is, the whole cause of the enemy's present anxiety for peace. "For every sixty-five men that the enemy now has in action—-using the words 'in action' to mean inclusive of the field depots and the* zone of the armies, but exclusive of the militarily useless men who still draw rations and are in uniform at work of one kind or another behind the armies—the enemy sees drafts of about twenty to supply wastage between this and the late part of next summer. It is grossly insufficient. The Alliance in every part of it sees indefinitely larger reserves of human material." ' Accordiije to jVIr Belloc, it, is effectives,, and effectives ajone, that have moved the enemy to all his expedients during the last few. months.