NEW GERMAN FORMATIONS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2971, 8 January 1917, Page 8

NEW GERMAN FORMATIONS

The question oE Germany's reserves is one which is frequently being discussed, and many explanations are being mado regarding the means which enabled the Central Powers to hold up the Russian offensive in the East, and carry out their otfennive against .Rumania. Mr. Hilaire Belloo deals with the subject of Germany's reserves in "Land and Water" of November 2, and in the course of his references to the enemy's new formations, says:— Germany has now not only a larger number of men in tho field (and, therefore, a correspondingly weaker reserve of man power) than she has ever had before, but she has also organised these men in a much larger number of divisions. The character of such an effort will be confused or missed by those who fail to comprehend what is meant by an increase in the. number of divisions composing an army..- _ It does not ■ necessarily mean an increase in the number of men put forward, although it usually does so, and in tins case certainly docs so. It means rather tho increase in tho number of units with which you are working. J' or tho division, whether large or small, at full strength or heavily depleted, is tho working unit of an army. And tho motive or an increase in the number of divisions is the desire to attain greater elasticity in movement and greater power of acting in. several separate fields. ... The reason that a division, whether larger or smaller, remains the fighting unit, is that tho division is in itself a little miniature army complete with all its elements of "uns, infantry, medical service, staff, etc. Its commander is the true head of one body. It is tho cell of the organism. The full division . . -is nominnlly some 20.000 men in the French and German services—a little less in the British service: far more in the Bulgarian. . . .'The German division at full strength counts roughlv 12,000 bayonets; a perfect model of it would he'three regiments of infantry, each 'regiment composed of four battalions, and each battalion of a thousand men; a battalion being made up of four companies, each company 200 strong. . . . Thus, if Ludendorff takes away "one regiment «ach from three full divisions and combines them to niake a new division with a new number and a new name, ho has added nothing to the German army in numerical strength savo whatever complement oi artillery he may choose to give the division (for to-day he will hardly add cavalry) and possibly certain elements of the staff. But wo must none the less take note of tho action, because of its effect upon the machine he is wielding.