The Washington times., 1915-05-23
GERMAN MILITARY RESOURCES

NINHHl> WILL Akr kESOURCES
1T is near year since, at thu
opening of the World War, som.
superficial commentators protested
that it must be a short struggle
They held that at the tension i'm
posed by present time warfare none
of the nations could bear the eco
nomic strain for many months, anc
that supplies of human materia
would be exhausted.
From the beginning this news.
paper insisted that economic ex.
haustion would be so slow a process
that it could not be counted upon to
insure short war. 1t pointed ou,
that all the history of great wars
has proved that the capacity of a
great people to sustain such burdens
Is Sc, great as, in peace times, to be
well-nigh beyond belief. 1t urged
consideration of the case of Serbia
| which had just been through two
frightfully costly and decimatinp
wars, yet was blithely plungine into
third, and proving itself more DOW.
erful than it had ever been before,
Either in military or an economic
way, the performance of Serbia in
well-nigh annihilating the big Aus
trlan force sent against the little
Kingdom, would have been set down
at the beginning as quite impos-
sible. The answer is that it han.
pened. There may almost be said to
be no limit to the possibilities of a
national energy when the ultimate
demand is pressed upon it. Our
own civil war, the Napoleonic strug-
giles, the revival of France after the
war of 1S70-71-these and manv
other illustrations bear out the
proposition that economic bank
ruptcy never overtakes a nation so
long as it is spiritually solvent.
Germany is now beginning to show
the stuff of which she is made. The
reserves are being called to the
field; the unframed landsturm. in
cluding every citizen up to forty
five years of age, though unframed.
These are in camps, being made in
to soldiers by that wonderfully ef-
fective German process that no
other country seems able quite to
equal. They are declared by men
who have seen them in action to be
only a little less effective than the
earlier levies. How many of them
there are not under arms, or avail
able to be put under arms, the GEN.
sors and the authorities do not per-
NIT to be conveyed to the world.
Along with this generation of the
elders there is also coming into the
field the new class of army recruits
of 1914: "hand-picked youngsters,
selected with as much care for their
physical perfection as they would
have been in time of peace; the new
young army" of boys who for age
and virility may be compared to the
beardless youth who fought our own
war between the States. These have
been trained as deliberately as if
there were no war in progress, no
imminent menace of demand for
their service. They will rush into
the fray in the very perfection of
condition from every possible point
of view.
New millions of soldiers, in brief,
are coming from out the loins of that
nation of over seventy mil
lions. They are coming, to make
the supreme effort in the east, then
in the west; to shake off the en-
pire's assailants, one at time if
possible, all at once if necessary:
coming in supreme confidence that
there is no such thing as defeat for
them.
And while Germany is turning out
its new armies, England is planning
for its third million of soldiers;
France is pouring in new resources
of men and trea asure; the colonies
are meeting greater and greater
drafts; Italy leaps to the fighting
line, full panoplied and two million
strong. The war lacks two months
of being year old, and it is plainly
just getting it's second wind. Unless
the overwhelming military stroke
which no army, no commander, no
country, has thus far been able to
administer. shall cut short the pro-
cess soon, there is small hope of end
ing the war within the year.