LENGTH OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 1 May 1915, Page 6

LENGTH OF THE WAR.

Tile reason, that interest and conjecture upon the duration of the war have become so much more acute ot late ia that the end of the winter is in sight, and that this moment coincides with the end of the period required for training new levies and for equipping our own. Mi'. Hilaire Belloc observes in 'Land and Water that either the enemy, who in now in the strict sense of that term besieged, will raise the siege, or the siege will continue. lie can only raise the siege by breaking through upon the west. In the case of that alternative all discussion of the duration of the war falls to the ground, menace to our civilisation would be then so apparent that every resource left to the western allies would be brought into play. And there can be so question, especially on the part of this country, of admitting the final result. In the maintenance of the present siege Mr. Belloc considers the element of wastage first as to men. The Germanic Powers have been wasting, and are wasting, at a rate nearer four than three times the rate of the western allies. The Russian losses will hardly, counting genuine prisoners of war—that is, soldiers taken as prisoners—touch the million. Perhaps three-quarters would be nearer the mark. Regarding the wastage of ammunition, it is Germany anil her ally that have to be supplied, and if Germany is highly industrialised, as highly industrialised as England herself, Germany's ally is not so. With the exhaustion of the original stocks the enemy's position becomes, in comparison with our own, more and more dillicult in this particular. The way in which the scarcity in food and in other necessaries of life, such as textiles, will nlVcct the duration of war depends entirely upon the strictness of blockade to which we subject the enemy. The sharper the blockade the shorter the war; the weaker the blockade the longer the war. The blockade from which the Germans suller is not only that imposed by the allied ileets. France will not allow Germany an ounce of certain materials which she largely controls. Russia can cut oil' grain to the value of .1!) per cent, per family in the German Empire. She can compel, and has compelled, that Empire! to kill vast quantities of animals Hie support ol which is no longer possible. Russia sends into Germany ).!0,00(> horses a year: now she is sending none. Further, Russia sends in vast supplies of eggs and butter, and the rest of dairy produce in general, which have also been cut oil'. Allow three full months and the weight of valuable projectiles upon the two sides will have turned in favor of the Western Allies and against Germanic Powers—if they are still contained—and the same calculation, a little more prolonged, gives the early summer as the corresponding date for the chief effect of the blockade of food. Tile end of June or beginning of July gives the point of maximum strain in tins regard, and that strain will bi! very heavily increased indeed if the Hungarian plain or any considerable part of it should fall into Russian hands before the harvest.