GERMAN MAN-POWER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1870, 29 August 1918, Page 2

GERMAN MAN-POWER.

IT is believed in Paris that Dr. Kuhlmann’s implied assertion that Germany eannot expect a victory by arms is not unconnected with the fact that the German Government has begun to realise that it is almost at the end of its tether as regards men. In 1910 the Germans were able to increase the output of munitions by civil mobilisation, which also released a certain number of men for the tiring-line, and the same year a. certain number of other civilian workers were obtained from Poland. In 1917 a further supply of manpower was obtained from the 1919 class, the greater proportion of whom were sent to the Russian front to relieve the trained men who came back to the Western front. This year, however, Colonel Thomasson points out in the Petit Journal, Germany could not repeat this effort with the 1920 class, which was called up in February, as there were no more men on the Russian front who could be usefully replaced. To some extent, however, this has been counterbalanced by the return from Russia of some 150,000 Germans who had been held there as prisoners of war, but many of these, as was . suspected in the Reichstag recently, are suspected of being infected with Bolshevism and are difficult to mix with the other effectives. Colonel Thopiasson estimates that during the current year Germany may find at most.another 500,000 to 000,000 men from depots in the interior, of whom h,e asserts ■IOO,OOO will be youths of the 1919 (dass and the rest returned prisoners and cured wounded. This does not mean, he says, that the Germans will not be able to make a very powerful effort within the next few months, but he argues that it will not be long before the shortage of men must make itself felt as cruelly among the Germans as the present shortage of food.