IN THE WEST.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1916, Page 5

IN THE WEST.

■> THE ATTACK AT VERDUN. JFRENCH QUITE CONFIDENT. Times and Sydney Sun Services. : ■ London, March 23. ' t* Petit Parisien says that Verdun is ■bw absolutely sheltered and the infantry are in better form than ever. The artillery is well placed and ammunition will not fail. The enemy is extending the field of battle because he is unable to penetrate the Bethincourt-Vaux front. A semi-official message says that the failure of the surprise attack at Malancourt and Avocourt proves that henceforth we shall be able to receive any more violent attacks at whatever point they may,occur. Our offensive and defensive power grows daily. The enemy may multiply his battering-ram blows Mywhere. but our present successes are * «ure guarantee of the issue of the iuture fighting. HAVING A SPELL. ■' VKTILLERY ACTIONS ONLY. ■■■-■- .Received- March 24, 9.50 pjm Paris, March 24. A, communique says: We have carried'out numerbus concentrations of firitig upon tlie enemy organisations on the roads and railways in the eastern Arp>nne and at Malaneourt Wood. There •ari'to further infantry actions to-day. .v '■ GERMAN SUCCESS AT •? AVOCOURT. JTOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY. Received March 24,11.40 p.m. Paris, March 24. voloncl Rousset, a military critic, says that the German success in capturing the Avoeoiirt corne. of the Malaneourt Vvdod must not be belittled, as it must prove the forerunner of a further advance, ending perhaps in the capture T" one of tiie dominating hills encircling tiie Avociurt Wood.

'FRENCH HEROISM. ' 'ifbi'iu'EEN Days under fire. Times and Sydney Sun Services. Received March 24, 5.50 p.m. London, March 23. Nr. Warner Allen describes the heroic resistance of two regiments at Verdun. They were fourteen days under fire and repelled repeated furious attacks, and then dug in under a terrific bombardment. Finally the enemy flung against them heavy masses of infantry, in the at/ompt to break through the thin line 1/ . a battering ram. ' A French officer, describing the attack, says: Wc used every gnn possible ugainst them, particularly the seventyfives and machine-guns, and it was over if: iialf an hour. Thousands of German corpses covered the ground. We still liold the positions entrusted to us, and General Joffer has specially congratulated Us. GERMAN MILITARY POSITION. In the course of an authoritative slaicnient on the subject of the German military position, General Malletcrre goes over once more the familiar ground of the enemy's resources in men. Incidentally, he points to a very common error in the calculation of the number of German effectives at the outbreak of war. As a ruie this calculation is based on a population of sixty-five millions, but the youngest class called to the colors, that of -> . 1910, belongs really to the statistics of 1800, when the population was fiftythree millions The approximate total strength «f Germany, he argues, can igfely be estimated at nine millions. Prance, on the same basis, he says, should have six million men at her disposal. The., estimate does not differ areatly from those now jurrent in Eritieh journals, but one prqmincnt British critic not so very long (ago insisted on the figure of thirteen million men as the Gtrswn strength. This, as General MtUeterre shows, is undoubtedly greatly excessive. TV Interesting portion of the gen- • toll's ttttate, 'ism H £ b s **& ton*

No. 3 of tlie "Patience, Effort and ' Confidence series, deals with the resources still remaining to be utilised by i the enemy. It is definitely known, he says, what Germany still has in her depots as a last reserve. The classes of 1914 and 1015 are at the front. The class of 1910, like the French class of the same year, is in the training camps, together with volunteers from the 1917 class, and in addition to these young recruits Germany lias only the second ban of the Landsturm, consisting of men between thirty-nine and forty-five years who have ever had military training. The total of these levies cannot exceed a million. One significant sign, mentioned by General Malleterre, is the fact that Germany is calling up men over the age of forty-five, on whom there is no legal obligation of service. These men will be, at best, indifferent military material, but they are evidently expected to furnisli reinforcements or to make good the wastage of the first-line troops after the exhaustion of the legal reserves. They cannot be trained in less than six months, and by that time, if the French calculations arc sound, they will be .sorely needed. Writing in January, General Malleterre declared that Germany could make good her losses only for another five months, and for that period only if the losses did not exceed 200,000 a month. "One can declare," he says, "without fear of error, that at the end of this winter Germany will have at her disposal no more than the youths of eighteen and nineteen and Landsturm troops of forty years and upwards who have never undergone military training. To these she can add only wounded men who have recovered and whose physical and moral value will diminish rapidly with the prolongation of the war." The moaning of this argument is that henceforth Germany will have to face the enormous development of her military operations with the troops already in the firing-line. Since May last her offensive campaigns in Russia and the Balkans. General Malleterre avers, have been carried out by the withdrawal of effectives from oilier fronts, the Balkan army, for instance, consisting of ten divisions dram lrom the Russian front.

In view of the big offensive against Verdun the words of General Mnllcterre may appear unduly optimistic, but they are worth quoting. "Thanks to the remarkable organisation of their network of railways and to ther central situation," he says, "the Hermans can carry out these high frequent strategic transfers, making the troops tight in turn on the Russian plains, on the bankg of the Yser and of the Aisne and in the Balkans. But one can understand the wastage which results, :n tlie long run, from the employment of the same troops on all the fronts, with a constantly diminishing supply <•! reinforcements. And this wastag> is shown already in the cessation of the offensive in Russia and in the iropiler.ee more and more revealed on the front. Wo are told from time to timo that the Germans will make a gnat effort on our side. It is necessary that wc should constantly be on our guard to maintain our ascendancy, but this statement of the enemy's reserves shows tiiat be could bring only weakened forces to such a development." General Malleterre adds that in his opinion in the not distant future the impossibility of repairing the wastage will compel the Germans to contract their fronts. Failing a contraction the enemy will find his lines broken by the reinforced armies of the coalition, and that will be the prelude to the recoil and the defont. General Malleterre accepts the current estimate of the definite German losses at three millions as being sufficiently correct. Such estimates arc based! on the published lists, and it is intcesting to have a calculation made by a German, who had the patienct to analyse the lists and to sum them. The figures are quoted by a neutral correspondent of the Times. The lists, he says, arc published daily, but may not be reproduced or summarised in the press, and they are now so complicated that the public has lost all count of their contents.- The German estimates that the lists published from the beginning cf the war np to December 7, 1015, show the following figures:— Killed 520,823 Prisoners 717,358 Wounded ~ •.-.-. 1,570,778 Total 2,817,959 Of this total 2,309,803 are Prussian casualties; the remainder are the casualties of the Bavarian, Saxon and Wurtcmburg armies. If, as is stated by the General Staff, CO per cent, of the wounded return to the colors, the total wastage admitted in the published lists was 1,857,490 in sixteen .months, or 117,218 a month, a figure far short of the French estimate of between 200,000 and 300,000. It may be observed that if 00 per cent, of the German, wounded return to the colors the French calculations of the German resources would be in error to the extent of at least three or four months. That is to say, the actual decline of the enemy's strength would set in some three months later than the French experts expect.