The Dolores star. [volume] (Dolores, Montezuma County, Colo.) 1901-current, 1917-06-29
Zen. Sir william Robertson Gives
Graphic Facts About Pres
ent Struggle.
klTn TIL IS APPALLING


London.-Gen. Sir william Robert
son In q speech recently gave Q graph
lc impression Of aOme Of the extraOr-
binary aspects Of the present war. II
has become merely trite to observe
that the war has now completely over
Swallowed every other occupation and
Interest in the world, but the extent to
which 1t has done this Is suggested In
most forcible way by some figures
which General Robertson employed.
In the armies Of all the belllgerents.
he said, there are now 24.0OO,O00 men.
which excludes the great civilian
co-Prussian war the total of all casual
ties was less than 100000. while in
this war the killed alone can be count
ed by the million. ..-
During the past five or six weeks
we have, suppose" said General Rob
ertson, expended some 100000 tons of
ammunition. which has had to be
moved by road, rnil and sea from the
factories In England to the guns in
France and man-handled probably not
less than half a dozen times"
Great transportation Task.
Two hundred thousand tons Of am
munitiOn means rather more than 49,
900 carloads as measured by the minia-
ture freight cars commonly loading
about twelve tons that are used in
England. General Robertson didn't
suggest, but any railroad manager with
whom one talks will promptly make
good the omission, that the mere trans
portation of this one item of war sup
plies at time when freight cars have
been sent to France by the thousand
constitutes terrific drain on the coun-
try's capacity to move things.
To transport ammunition Is a par
ticularly delicate and dangerous bust
ness and 1t Is only because Of splendid
organization and high efficiency among
railroad employees that there have
been SO very few accidents and prac-
tically no real disasters as incidents to
this service. . General Robertson paid
a special tribute to the men who have
organized and carried on this branch
Of war work.
Comparing the scale and scope of
the present war with former struggles,
General Roherfson wa. nart,cuIarIv in.
terestine ana ,nnre.sive He observed
that the greatest peculiarity Of the
present war Is In the colossal numbers
of men EMPLOYED at the front. As a
matter of fact. he omitted to empha-
size his figures by observing that the
great proportion Of the civil popula-
tion Immediately engaged in work for
the support of the army il quite az i'm
pressiye a regularity OF this struggle,
A Warfare Of MACHINERY,
|, II Tee warfare NJ machinery and
macbanisms many of them new and
heretofore almost untried. These have
reau,red tn he nroduced. tn he tested
and IN have great bodies Of men
trained for using them.
COMPARING the present war with
TINT Of 1870 between GERMANY and
France General Robertson observed
that .in the 1870 war armies were
counted nv the hundred Thousand and
Of the hattie NJ Gravelotte where the
heaviest losses were incurred. the to-
tal casualties were only about $4,000
men on both sides. while for the whole
war the total casualties of both sides
were less than half million.
I'm the present war the killed alone
can be counted by the million while
the total number Of men engaged
amounts to nearly 24,OOOOOO. In fact,
this war is not, as in the past, a war
merely of opposing armies, but war
of nations, and there is not today a
man or woman in the empire who Is
not doing something either to help or
to hinder the winning of the war. A
man of great distinction told me the
other day that he estimated the weight
of purely military effort at only Is per
cent of the whole, the remaining IS
per cent being, strictly speaking, Of a
nonmilitary nature, and made up of
x.nr ,,or,ap%c a Dry c,,lturo food