The Washington herald., 1917-07-15

present Is not to take hills or towns.
but to kill Germans.
Take together. then. the allied su-
periority in the air. our increasing
margin in guns and shells. and the
advantage enjoyed by the allied in
fantry in attacking where and when
IL chooses and provoking the enemy to
unprepared and immediate counter
attacks, and the reasons for optimism
at the front became plain. Victory,
as the soldiers believe, is only a ques-
ton OF time. Attrition Is wearing
down the German armies faster than
the British and French, and the allies
have a superiority In -bayonets of per-
haps five to four on the Western
front.
Two years ago. Hindenburg Is re-
ported to have said, THE German
army has a brilliant present but no
future" Today he might admit that
the present is no longer brilliant, and
the future more a minus quantity than
ever. In all calculations as to COM
ing campaigns, both here and doubt
less on the enemy front as well, the
presence of an American army in
France plays very large part. How
long it will take the United States
to form a striking force that can deal
the finishing blow Is not known, but
that It will be formed and used, II the
French and British armies are not
able to finish the job themselves, is
taken for granted.
THE whole situation Is as simple as
problem in addition and subtrac-
tion." a distinguished soldier said to
me. THE enemy knows his own
losses and his own reserves and his
own munition power exactly, and he
can make a reasonably good guess as
to ours. We know our own exactly,
and we can make a fairly accurate
estimate of his. II we got together
with the Boche, and we both told the
truth, we should probably agree that
there was once a chance that the Ger
man armies could tire us all out and
get draw. A small chance, perhaps,
but still a chance. But We should
agree that that chance went over
board when the United States passed
conscription bill and decided to send
an army over here. From a military
point OF view, the Boche is doomed,
and he most certainly knows 1t.
THE Boche is not a fool. He is not
going on killing his men and running
his country for nothing. He knows
he has no chance on the battlefield,
and he would surrender at once If he
did not see somewhere else a glim-
mer OF hope. Undoubtedly he believed
in the submarine at one time, but he
must now realize that so great is the
preponderance of force gradually
mounting up against him here that
no number OF ships he can sink will
do more than postpone the evil day
of reckoning.
His present reason for fighting
must be that he thinks we are all get
ting tired of the war. so he may hope
to bedevil our labor parties or our
weaker politicians into q peace made
up Of pretty phrases and pious aspira-
tions which will leave him a posi-
tion to recuperate and attack US
again in ten or twenty years. That
is the meaning OF all these Stockholm
mapeuvers. l am not a politician but
a soldier, but I think il the politicians
and the public generally had a clear
notion of the military situation. saw
the thing as 1t is instead OF regarding
our front as deadlocked, they could
understand the German political
lodges much better than they do. The
Boche is beaten. II We all hang to-
Sether and you send us men. And he
must be beaten. or he'll attack US
again."