The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. HOW LONG WILL THE WAR LAST?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 205, 6 February 1915, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1915. HOW LONG WILL THE WAR LAST?

This war is the biggest thing in the way of wars that lias ever happened to the old worid since the dawn of history, It transcends all limits of thought, imagination, and reason. We little creeping creatures cannot see more than' a frac tion of it. Even it we climb painfully to the top of the highest ladder of thought we are still pygmies, and the war still towers high aoove us. We see the raging torrents at our feet, but the high summits are veiled in impenetrable mist. Try as me may to preserve a distinct and unbroken view of the scene before us, the clouds of suspicion, ignorance, prejudice and optimism constantly obscure our vision. (We look, gasp, wonder, and are dumb. Ave do not know. This war, for once, is bigger than anybody. No one dominates it. No one even understands it. Nobody can. How long will the war last? Th ( . Times' military correspondent answers the question. He says:—When the war oegan it was South Africa over again, and the pundits all held that it could not last beyond Christmas. Now April is the fashionable date. The forces at work—forces moral, material, religious, fanatical—defy analysis and investigation. Tne scene is too big, the forces at work too many, their influence too imponderable. Some half-mad mystic, some Mullah who has had a dream may transform the character of the war in a night, and we all have our mystics and our Aiullahs. How long, then, will the war last? What is far more important and to the point is to discuss what we can do to hasten the conclusion of the war. The Allies, England, France, and Russia have all committed faults, partly in the preparation for war, partly in its conduct, and unless these faults, so far as in us lies, are redressed, the war may become interminable in the journalistic sense. The war can only end with the final victory of the Allies, because, even if we leave aside India, the Dominions, and Japan, 2.J0 millions of people, other things being equal, must beat 115 millions, and I there is no help for it. JJut unless wo can hasten events, the sacrifices which the war may entail may counterbalance all the compensations which we can exact from the exhausted vanquished and may not leave us in a position to profit by victory. Energetic organisation in all its various form* and the prosecution of the w;>r with the utmost violence are plainly our affair now, and to t!i"s interest all else mrst be subordinated. Almost all our faults on the side of the War OfTU-c i avi been faults of preparation. They have been serious enough. The activity of Lord Kitchener has been prod gious, and the country has ris'ii to him, but he is no magician, and the only ire-ops which we have been albe to Tim- yet are those <■' the Army as it existed liejore the var. It will still take ):>i.ntle before t'" new armies] can !;.■ {ngii<;rc3, and not jntU well on into the year will the country he in a

position to grind out steadily constant supplies of trained men, armed and equipped for the field. In this greatest i of wars, and four months after its outbreak, we find ourselves with live men in Knaland for every one effective fighting man at tin: front, and until we ,-jiu alter this proportion, .and have five men at

the front for every three iu England, we cannot prosecute the war as vigorously as wo should. We have given France live Army Corps instead of five divisions, but circumstances compel us to do much more. Our Allies can make no complaint of us, for we are turning out troops as fast as our factories can clothe and arm them, and there is no ' material possibility of going faster than We are going now. While the organisation, enthusiasm, and conduct of the rrench Field Armies have been splendid, it is a disappointment that the Hermans still retain a foothold on French soil, if we search about for the cause of the failure to cleanse French soil of I tlie invader, we can only find it in the particular number of troops which ' France has so far placed in the field'. No I one knows tue exact figures, nut it is supposed that rraneo has never had in the fighting line an army commensurate with the number of trained men which she was known to possess. French policy has been to maintain the normal war strength of her troops, but not to create new units, small or large. As ft result, and as a necessary result, the Allies are not yet able to thrust the German armies out of France and to prosecute vigorously an offensive war. The failure of Russia to clear Poland 01 the Germans is not due to want of numbers or fighting prowess, but solely, or at all events, mainly, to bad communications. If this defect has been made manifest in Poland itself, how much more manifest will it not be when Russian armies are once more upon the borders of Silesia and exposed to tne full effects of the' German railway system? Twice Russian Armies have been driven hack, and twice with heavy loss, almost entirely oecause Germany's railways allow her to mass troops unexpectedly at a decisive point. Is there a remedy? ''The only visible remedy is the immediate improvement; of existing lines, and especially the construction of transverso lines in Poland, to enable Russian troops and supplies to be quickly transferred from one side to another. Tlie extraordinary intelligence and fertility of resource which Russia displayed in 1904-05 upon the trans-Siberian lead ns to believe that she is perfectly capable of laying contractors' lines at the rate of 10 to 12 miles a day in all parts of Poland west of the middle 'Vistula where they are so badly needed. Delay is dangerous, and until tlie Rus- ' sian armies are more advantageously 1 situated with regard to railway communications they will continue to act under great and grievous disadvantage. If the unprepared condition of tne enf tente Powers for offensive war comI pletely demolishes the mendacious thesis of the German Chancellor, it is also true that we Allies, one and all, have to do more, than we have done yet, and to do it better. We must all work at full pressure without any foolish hankering after peace until the aims i which we have set before us are comI pletely attained. The measure of the j time which the war will last is the measure of the energy which we display in shortening it."