MISCALCULATIONS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 6, 10 December 1915, Page 4

MISCALCULATIONS.

In the course of a special article. writ ■ ton by a Swedish Professor resl.dbi : b_iM Stockholm, many misea 1 a|> $9 what would happen In tills war are pointed out. Sharp observers, he says, begin to see that none ot the privations and obstacles which uoie relied on to finish the war will finish it. “Prophecies of the shortness of a great European war have proved wrftng. The prophets based their reasoning on the fact that the franco* German war of 18(f) and the AustroGerman war ot 18()6 were short, and on the theory that the participation of whole nations must bring quickly different kinds of exhaustion: exhaustion of men, of money, of nerves. Greatest of all the prophets was the Polish Jewish banker. Jean de Bloch, who gave Czar Nicholas H. Ids,, idea for The Hague Conference. In six thick, volumes and a supplement Bloch

preached that a great war could not, last,for more than three montlnC* The development of fortress warfare andj position warfare would make ,•it impossible for cither side to gifin rapid victory within three months; and before the three months were out, financial, exhaustion, hunger, revolutionary troubles, and a general revolt 'against suffering would compel peaces Il iU'o richest European Power could not finance a war fought with millions, of •soldiers'. Bloch was an economist who | knew nothing about military affairs, but understood finance. ' The lighting in France and Belgium confirms part of his military theories, hut his financial theories have been blown to hits. Nine nations are easily financing a war which costs from five,to eight times their peace expenditure there is no hunger; there is less unemployment than in peace time, and the working classes so far from opposing a continuation of 'the war are the first to demand that the waV shall be fought to a finish.”