The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1916-01-05
GERMANY IS BEATEN
EMPIRE HAS SHOT Her BOLT
And WAR ENDS in 1916
ALLIES WIN With men

ALlL5 WIN HElI MLN
); War Correspondent Declares Tha
Kaiser Must Go Down in Defea1
Because the Allies Have an Over
whelming Superiority in Ships, il
Men and in Money.
John Reed recently returned tc
: Few York after sojourn with the
sussian armies in the eastern wal
: Tont, and a tour through the Balkan
states. Earlier in 1915 he had been
with the German armies in the west
i ind was convinced of their invinci-
4 pility. He was correspondent of The
New York World during the Mexican
revolution. Otherwise Mr.. Reeds
war correspondence has been done for
1.-The Metropolitan Magazine.
!; Observations made during year
of travel in Europe, where visited
England, France, Germany, Belgium,
.. Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece,
Russia and Italy-all the belliger-
ents except Austria-have convinced
me that Germany is already beaten.
and that the war will be ended by
next autumn with the withdrawal of
the German armies from the con-
quered lands.
I don't see how there was ever a
possibility of Germany's winning the
war, unless she managed somehow to
smash one Of the three great allies
France, Russia or England. Any one
of these three out Of it, she could
easily have triumpned Italy don't
consider one Of the vital factors IN
the struggle: she would have been
vital only if she had thrown her lot
with the central powers, and hung
like a swapping dog on the flanks Of
France. Had she remained neutral,
the ultimate result must have been
the same-Victory for the Triple En-
tente.
To my mind it is a question of
ships, men and money. Almost all
the bulletin board strategists at the
outbreak Of the war calculated on
that basis. But the great German
drive on Paris, and the fighting on
the Aisne-when on the map which
hung against the wall of my room in
Paris I followed the official COM
muniQues and watched the apparent
ly inevitable Teuton advance-and
then the monstrous crumbling Of the
Russian front, and fihally the annihi-
lation Of Serbia, made US feel that
perhaps superior organization, speed
and mobility of forces were the de-
termining factors.
By a miracle OF organization the
French and British got themselves
together in the west so that German
superiority in that regard was can
celled. On the eastern front the Rus
slams were pressed as far as Russians
can be pressed, and the line reached
beyond which an invading. army be-
,eemes top-heavy, and every miles OF
conquest cancels offensive fighting
power; on account Of the difficulties
of provisionment in vast and ter
rible plain where everything has been
destroyed by the retreating host, the
necessity of constructing mighty lines
of communication where railroads are
few and roads impossible, and the
attitude of the civilian population,
who become wild beasts the moment
the foreigner puts foot on the soil OF
Holy Russia.
Finally, down in the Balkans,
where every day registers new Ger
man victory, the armies of the CEN
tral powers, Bulgaria and Turkey,
have an overwhelming preponderance
of force. AS long as they have they
will win; but once their numbers are
offset by the numbers of the enemy,
they will lose, no matter what their
strategical superiority. However, !
shall speak of the Near Eastern sit
uation in another paragraph. What
I want to indicate here is that the
bulletin board strategists were right:
It is a question Of ships, men and
money-and the greatest of these is
men.
The Allies have the financial ad-
vantage, but that makes little differ
ence in the actual fighting. A bank
rupt country can 60 right on-the
South did it in the Civil War, and
Napoleon also. And while it is gen.
orally known that the Allies can get
all the food, clothing and ammuni-
ton they need-through the holding
of the seas-thcre is a huge miscon-
ception in the public mind about Ger
many's resources in these matters.
Just because copper telephone
wires and copper kettles and copper
pennies were requisitioned, it doesn't
mean that GerMany's supplies of that
metal have run out. The shortage
pinched, no doubt, but when I was in
Berlin witnessed the arrival of some
millions of bars from America, which
had been shipped to Savona, Italy,
and transported north in carloads Of
dried vegetables"
That copper paraded in calts down
the Inter den Linden behind a mill
tary band, and the Americans in
charge made night of it in the
Adlon bar. Since then Germany has
seized the great Serbian copper mine
one of the largest in the world
and for some months has been work
ing inexhaustible deposits in Asia
Minor.
As for food, the newspaper tales of
bread tickets, bread riots, starving
women and children, soldiers on the
front surrendering to get a square
meal, etc., have given an entirely
wrong idea of conditions in Germany.
All the conquered lands were under
the plough and the sewers, the rail-
way embankments were growing veg
etables. ponds and swamps have been
drained and filled up to make gar
dens, and the Bulgarian grain crop
and the Rumanian grain crop were
bought by Germany.
Germany can feed herself for seven
years with a normal increase of popu-
lation. It is not so easy now as it
will be in two years, when the fields