WHAT ARE OUR RESOURCES AGAINST GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 July 1916, Page 5

WHAT ARE OUR RESOURCES AGAINST GERMANY.

AN' EXPERT'S ESTIMATE, I lie military correspondent of til# limes, Colonel A'Court Repington, is certainly the soundest military critic we have. He knows war alike as a science, a history and an art. He never exaggerates; he never utters an opinion which does not rest on a foundation of solid facts; he is sober almost to the point of pessimism in his forecast?. In view 3f the great aggressive effort the Allies must make, this spring, he usesses the resources of -he Alliei, and measure the task they h.ive to achieve. Hie indecisive result,i of the war," he savs, "are broadly due to the fact that the military forces in the field are, in the aggregate and in effect, practically equal on the two sides. We Allies have, on the whole a numerical superiority, but it is discounted in practice by our uneconomical use of part of it i(i distant theatres. . . . The more that the Germans are short of men the more will they endeavor to make up for them bv armament of every kind, and wc can place no exact limits to what they can achieve in this branch of the art of war. We Allies were outclassed at many points in this deadly rivalry during the first year of the war, hut having greater resources at disposal we should be able in the end to outbuild and outfight the Germans in the war of material. We have thousands of heavy guns coming U n, not to speak of all the other weapons which are bein» produced in profusion, and we have every hope of beating the Germans at a game which they imagined to be peculiarly their own.'' As regards what may be called the spiritual factor of the struggle, the moral of the contending armies, Colonel Repington speaks in confident accents:; "We are," he says, "fortunate in the fact that the Germans, despite all their successes, have not been able to estab* lisli any moral superiority over the Allies. There is literally not one Allied army, nor any arm in any one of these armies, which does not consider itself superior to the enemy. We can do more than we have done to make known the heroism of our fighters and to arouse enthusiasm for regiments which 'have done so much and suffered so terribly. Victory springs, as history shows, from the preponderance of the sum of all physical and moral powers combined, and we cannot afford to neglect any one of these factors for an instant. We 1 have, stayed the enemy, but we have not yet beaten him." Here is the arithmetic of the contending armies: RIVAL NUMBERS "We must reckon the German field armies at 3,(i()0,lH)0; those of the Austrian* at 1,51)0,000 to 2,000,000; and the Turkish and Bulgar armies at about another million. Without publishing our figures we can say that the numerical superiority which we possess in the field is not such as to promise decisive victory, judged from the merely numerical point of view. "On the other hand, our reserves, or potential reserves, arc superior. We alone in these islands have nearly as many men at home as abroad, and a third force of about, equivalent strength in the recruits who are assumed to be available under the Derby scheme. Thus we alone have reserves nearly equal, so far as men' numbers are concerned, to those remaining for Germany and Austria, and our great task, this year, is to bring tliem forward for the Held. France has not yet used her 1016 and 1917 classes at the front, while she has other men at her depots, and older men who might be called upon. Italy, for every man at the front, has two in her depots and a third not yet called up. Russia has, actually, trained and available, directly rifles are ready, as many reserves as those of Germany, and an immense number still behind.

"It is our business to exploit, better, the resources of our oversea possessions excluding the self-governing dominions. which are looking after themselves and winning a great place in British history. The part which India lias taken in the war has been a most honorable one, but India as not yet given us all that she can afford from her martial races and great resources. The Indian \rmy Corps in France, excluding the cavalry, was never over 25,000 combatants. Jt did line service, and the Indian. Corps under Sir James Willcocks in France suffered casualties equal to 100 per cent, of its combatant effectives. We can look back to this service rendered with feelings of the utmost gratitude and admiration, but we can well believe that more energy can be thrown into the task of utilising in Kastern fields the abundant resources ol this mighty power.

AN UNTAPPED RESERVOIR OP FIGHTING MEN. "Another source of recruiting which has scarcely been tapped at all is the native population of Africa. Not only England, but France. Italy. Portugal and Belgium have immense possession? in Africa, and to these the possessions of Germany are biing steadily added We, and the French even more, hav< raiseil some good troops from the nativt population of Africa. But the aggio gate of forces so raised is inconsider aide compared with the number of mer of lighting races in Africa, ami we cat all do very much better if «c try. "While we thus exploit, as Ronit .would have done, the martial resource! of the Empire abroad, our main ell'orl must be made at home. Our armies iithe Held are in excellent order, and onlj need completion up to strength and drafts for replacing • waste. We are making a hail mistake in allowing timeexpired veterans from the front to withdraw into civil life without any sciious effort being made to retain their services, which are invaluable. There is a clear case for hountying Ur-e men, on a. higher scale if they will lv.urii to the front, and on a lower scale if they will rejoin to train troops at home and to stiffen the younger levies, but in both cases a preliminary furlough of a couple of months is their rightful due. The bounty of £lj offered in an Army Older is low. These are professional soldiers of the old army, and they are worth their weight in gold to us just now."