Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-12-27
HAS GERMANY SHOT HER BoLT1

attempted.
In the first weeks of the war they drove
their perfectly organized machine ruthlessly
over ruined Belgium. There was, their ex-
! perts had reported, no force In Europe able
| to resist them: and across their front stood
| only the hurriedly collected evies, compare
! lively disorgani2ed and poorly differed, of
! French and British They overran northern
| France, seizing 10 per cent. of its manufac-
turing capacity They swept to the very
gates of Paris. Then Joffre somehow con-
jured up a thunderbolt, and at the Marine he
hurled it against the invaders They got no
further. They stumbled. they halted, they
turned back; and from that day to this, in
long months of desperate fighting, their ad-
vance lines have remained in the trenches to
which they then retreated They struck for
Paris and they lost. They sde-stepped to-
ward Calais and again collapsed Every
month since has seen the power of the Allies
on the western front increased. The French
artillery has met the test. Campaign num-
her one, the great drive into France, was
failure
Next came the project to destroy the main
Russian army, while it was still weak in ar
tillery, and bring the Car to his knees be-
fore help could come. 1t was great enter
prise. bravcly and efficiently undertaken. 1t
saved Galicia and won Warsaw, but the
main objective was never won The Russian
army is still in the field, more capable
army than it ever was before better equipped
and better Differed The Russian Empire
has had no more than it's little finger hurt.
Its might grows day by day, and the history
of the last year proves that Russia is still
Russia, nation that rides to triumph on its
defeats, and is never so formidable when
it's armies have been driven back far into
the hnterand. Glorious as the Russian cam
paign was for German arms, 1t was failure,
and none realizes this better than German
high command. Campaign number two was
a failure.
Next, with Constantinople starving for
munitions, having by shrewd diplomacy won
the Bulgarian Gear and deluded the Allies
into failure to give proper assistance to their
Balkan ally, the Kaiser began his drive
through Serbia, the most spectacular and
dramatic of all his enterprises. Within
few weeks he virtually annihilated the Serb
ian army, than which there none more
capable or brave on earth. He won n route
to Constantinople. revictualed the Turkish
cannon and compelled the practical aban-
donment of the Allies Dardanelles campaign
But the success of this enterprise was to be
moral rather than material 1t was to induce
among the Allies willingness for peace. In
that purpose it has failed completely first
because the possession of Constantinope
means nothing in itself to Germany. save as
a base for operations; secondly, because the
line from Berlin to Constantinople is mem
aced at many points and the guarding of it
will require thousands of men.
A campaign against Egypt and another to-
ward India by way of Bagdad would be in
vitations to defeat Those far-fung forces
would have TO be supplied with munitions
by Germany, the demands on whose fac
tories are already enormous She has won,
therefore, in the Near East longer lines to
defend. another exhaust pipe leading from
the reservoir of her resources. And none
who knows the history of Serbian arms
doubts that she lost during the Serbian cam
paign at least as many men as did the
Serbians.
Meantime, pressure from Italy strengthens
and more and more men are required to de-
fend Austria that front. OF the maximum
number of 100000 men available for military
service in Germany at least 100000 have
been killed or incapactated. Yet there are
longer lines now to be defended than ever
before A vast industrial army is required
at home Each new drive means new holes
in the ranks which cannot be reflled. What
was the flower of the German army IS
months ago has practically ceased to exist.
but the armies OF the AllleS. lneTlclent to
begin with, in spite of losses, have gradually
howered and give evidence of increased
power,
So, apparently victorious everywhere on
land, the German triumph is now at it's
zenith and must soon begin to set. And on
the seas where power often has ulti-
mately decided wars, the German flag is no.
where seen. Her sea-borne commerce has
been utterly destroyed She wages, it is true,
a sort of guerrilla warfare with submarines,
nut they can do nothing decisive. Meantime
he English fleets guard the ocean highways,
over which flow to the Allies the product of
all the world that is at peace.
In finance the Allies are the stronger, in
food and in mass of numbers. Monthly they
the disparity in supplies of NUM-
tions. Daily they are learning from the
Germans themselves military efficiency. They
have discovered, too, that the Germans can
be held, that they are not inyincible; and
the war, at first defensive one, has become
a definite and set purpose on the part of the
Allies to wipe out forever the whole system
of mlitarism as developed by the Kaiser.
The end is not yet, nor is it very near; but
there is sound reasoning behind the refusal
of the Allies TO consider terms of peace
They believe, and so do some of the keenest
bolt and by next autumn the whole charac-
ter of the war will have been changed. with
the cause of the Allies decidedly in the as