GERMANY'S NEGLECTED ARMY.

Evening Star, Issue 14932, 19 July 1912, Page 10

GERMANY'S NEGLECTED ARMY.

LEAGUE OF A MTLLTON MEN TO URGE REFORM. [By J. Er.r.rs Baekto.] During the la.it few months many article.-, written by leading Gorman generate and by eminent military writers, have appeared in tho German Press in which loud and strcnu complaints are raised about the neglect and the insufficiency of the German' armv. These complaints arc not without cause, and a number of patriotic Germans have, after lengthy public di'so-cs-sion, decided to create a powerful national Armv Le.isrue, the so-sailed " Wehrverein." which a fev,- weoks ago was formally incorporated, the model of the great German Navy League, which hac more than a million members, and issues a journal of which more than 300.000 copies are circui kited The. aim of this new German Army 1 League is to start a popular campaign all [ over Germany, and to force the Governi ment to provide for Germany that army i which she requires. —A Striking Comparison.— I Are the complaints of German generals ! of European reputation as to the neglect ! and the insvflk'iency of the main army ! justified? That question can to some «- | tent be answered by certain figures which j everv layman can understand, for laymen I cannot, "after all, decide whether tho peri i-onid opinions of distinguished officers are justified in fact. From tho official German statistics we learn that, during tho last. 10 years. Germany's expenditure on the army and navy has boon as follows:

1910 40,361,150 21,702,250 I During the 10 years 1901-10 the naval 'expenditure of Germany has increased by I more than 220 per cent." During the fame | period tho expenditure on the army has ini creased only by 20 per cent. It, is still i moro significant that from 1901-04 and I from 1903-10 the G-erman military ex.I pendituro has decreased. For Germany, I which borders upon three Great Powers, j and which may conceivably be attacked ; simultaneously on several sides by a corn- < bination of Powers, tho army is evidently j a. more important means of defence than 1 the navy, for by ees no vital part of Gerj many can be touched. ! ' —Shortage of Soldiers. — ( At first eight it appears, therefore, that ! Germany's expenditure on the navy has been comparatively extravagant, and that on her nrmy comparatively insignificant. That impression is etrcngthened if wo compare, tho rank and file of Germany's military and naval forces,, for such a comparison yields the following results :

According to the German Constitution every German citizen able to bear has to serve. Germany's population, amounted in 1900 to 56.367.178 people, hi 1910 it had increased to 64.896,881 people, or by a j littles more than 8,500.000. It has been the r;de in Germany that ;i fixed propor- | tion of the population, about 1.1 nor cent., ! ; belong to the" standing army. f hat was j the proportion in 1901, p.f. a glance at the foregoing table chows Between 1901 and I 1910° the German army ought to have been I increased in the normal course, by about j 83,000 men, which is equal to 1.1 per cent, on the 8,500,000 people by whom the population has increased. But instead of adding 93,000 men to the standing army, Germany has added only 18,uC0. Trie, German authorities havo_ tried to economise on the army by keeping down Up strength. For jnetance, when Germany raided a large number of companies armed with machine gun?, she did so by taking the necessary men from the infantry and reducing the infantry's ranks, and by converting 20 batteries of horse artillery. The reduction of the infantry and of the mounted artillery, especially of the latter, has been deeply 'regretted by German military authorities, for Germany has by no means an abundance of mounted artillery. —The Menace of France. — How great the neglect of the. German army has been and how insufficient is its strength can be shown, to any layman. The German race is at least as able to bear amis as the French. Germany has a population of 66,000.000. and France only 38.000.000. From these figure* one might conclude that Germany should have a standing amiv at least 50 per cent, larger than that of' France. However, a glance at the ' Statesman's Year Book ' or ' Whitakcrs Almanac' e-howe that the standing armies of France and GcTma.ny are practically equally strong. This- astonishing result" is easy to explain. The French put all the men able to bear arms into the arrav, while, the Germans train onlv two-thirds of the men able to bear arms, and dismiss the remaining third for the cake of economy rather than for the snko of efficiency. Having become awavo that now danger centres have arisen, Germany is rapidly constructing railways which will allow her to direct large streams of troops towards the Belgian frontier and tho Danish mainlard. Last, but not leant, isomo of the most active and most eminent Anglophobeß in Germany have begun to Eee that, as Mr Winston Chirrchill correctly said, for Germany the army is a necessity, but the. navy more in "the nature of a luxury. Therefore some of the most eminent Anglophobes in Germany have raised the cry : "We must increase the army, even if we have to neglect the navy, for the _ neglect of our army endangers Germany's existence." That argument may possibly lead to a reduction in Germany's naval armaments, or it may at least put a brake upon Germany's naval expansion.

Expenditure on I'-ipo-ntutuTe on Carman army. German navy. 1S01 £33,896,600 £9,744,600 1902 33,459.000 10,267,800 1903 32,998,500 10,631,400 1904 32,353,900 10.327,750 1905 34.856,300 11.574,150 1906 . 37,632,000 12,773,650 1907 . 40,341.550 14,544,150 1908 41.372.950 16,885,400 1909 42,739,200 20.278.400

Rank avid filo Rank and file of Gorman of German army. navy. 3901 . ... 604.168 31.171 1902 .. . ... 605,811 33.565 1903 .. . ... 605,975 35,668 1904 .. . ... 606.372 38.406 1905 . ... 609,758 40,862 ]906 . ... 614,555 43.328 1907 .. ... 616.853 46.747 1908 . ... 619,040 50.323 1909 . ... 621,112 57.068 1910 .. ... 622,285 62,013