The Washington herald., 1917-11-25
Allies to Fill Up Gaps
Made in Italian Army
French and British Weaken West Front to
Stem Invasion in Venetia, Says
John Lloyd Balderston.

NtIo CElLICAl C0uulNlOue PCIn1pb
in deadly peril. Whether the allies
stop them in Italy on this, that. or
the other river cannot cancel their
strategical success. The gaps on the
west front cannot be filled by French
reserves. Americans well know why.
And England too, for all her proud
reticence, has no men to spare.
But America has the men, It is up
to America to revise her program, to
increase her efforts. Only SO can the
balance be restored and the enemy
defeated. The stern. brutal facts of
the situation as have set them down
can be faced by a great people who
have not yet begun to fight. Per
haps famine In Germany. perhaps
revolution. will upset all strategical
judgments and calculations. But we
must not count on unknown quanti-
ties, II we want to win the war.
AS illustrating the opinions now
entertained in competent circles re-
garding the military outlook, 1 am
able TO give the answer made by three
leading soldiers now in London to the
question, when will the war end?''
Gen. Sir O'Moore Creagh. v. C..
Lord Kitchener's successor as COM
A0
Events have 80 confounded prophecy
that he would be a rash man who
would today state a date. Everybody
who has been tempted into prediction
has gone wrong, from the Kaiser,
who promised his soldiers that they
would be back In Germany before the
fall of the leaves in 1914. to the Rus
sian General Brusiloff, who thought
that 1916 would see II through.
But. granted that certain condi-
tion are fulfilled. It Is fairly safe to
venture this prophecy. In the past
the trouble has been that the ifs have
not come OF.
May Last Two Years.
Assuming that q disciplined and
re-enforced Russian army faces the
enemy in the coming spring, and by
its pressure holds up some 80 Ger
man and Austrian divisions, then, in
the light of Americas very sub
stantia! aid in men and aeroplanes
next year, probably the winter of
next year should bring Europe's
agony to an end.
On the other hand, il by mis-
fortune the Russian army should
further weaken. enabling from forty
to nifty German divisions with their
compliments Of guns and aeroplanes
to be transported west. then the war
may be prolonged for another two
years.
AT the earliest. the war, in my
opinion, will not be over before No
vember, 1918: at the latest I cannot
imagine hostilities extending beyond
November. 1919. OF the two views.
4 am more inclined to believe in the
former than in the latter. Much will
depend on Russia; much on our abil-
ity. in cooperation with America and
France, to make ourselves absolutely
supreme In the air. Given this su-
premacy and no possibility OF any
large exodus of German forces east
to west, and am confident that We
shall have the Belgian coast in the
early summer and that thereafter de-
velopments will march very rapidly.
THE weather has been atrocious for
Sir Douglas Haig's plans. II 1t sud
denly takes a permanent turn for the
better. which we can hardly expect,
1t may be that we shall complete this
winter the recovery Of the ground to
provide US with the ideal springboard
for the liberation of Flanders. =, II so,
that will make a decision in the late
autumn of 1918 all the more certain" I"
The same question was asked Gen.
GuTke, general-in-chief of all the
Russian armies OF Russia just before
the revolution, who recently came to
London, after being deprived of his
command for. writing a letter OF SYM
pathy to the Gar after his late mas
ter's enforced abdication. Gen. Gurke
said: r
The situation depends on the re-
Mobilization OF the Russian and Ital-
ian armies and on the rapidity with
which the United States can put prop