Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-10-27
NO STOPPING PLACE FOR
HUNS UNDER LAUNDERING
tWasta9e Of Men and Material More and More
i Serious-Enemy May Try to Make
Stand on the ScheLdt.

1920 boys Of eighteen. nearly a. quar-
ter of whom are still under eighteen.
and who number on paper 100000. but
very much less. Indeed. the expert
ment of putting them on the front
line had already been tried earlier
in the course Of the present enemy de-
feat and had partially broken down.
the enemy higher command saying
that they had for the moment been
withdrawn. This depletion of num-
bers, which nQnst be the constant
theme for the present moment, gov
erns today the whole war and has
consequence. quite apart from the eff
feet of weakening the mere nuneri-
cal strength of the line to be held.
The first Of these effects is the diff
Guilty of giving the proper rest to di-
visions retired from the line. We have
cases in which units withdrawn for
repose were compelled in the same
week to re-enter the 'front.' The old
rule of retiring a division when it
had lost from fifth to a quarter of its
fighting strength of infantry no long
er applies. German divisions are re-
tired when the higher command is
compelled to retire them. not before,
and they are continually thrown In
again after grossly insufficient repose
and grossly insufficient recruitment.
Exhaustion of Movement.
The second indirect effect Of this de-
pletion in numbers is the necessity OF
ing effort for any army. Let me ex-
plain When you have a sufhciency OF
men you hold a particular line with.
say, 100 units, and in reserve at varf-
GUS parts behind the line. distributed
all along the length. say fifty units.
cuff ,ia ~
to adopt this disposition, and as the
units on the fighting line are used up
you withdraw them for recruiting and
repose and replace them by units
taken from the reserve. These units,
kept in reserve, are conveyed to: the
nications. They relieve other units
standing Immediately in front of
them. =
Again, If sudden pressure is
brought to the right of your line you
which stands right behind the right
end; then If suddenly the enemy
meet it by bringing up the reserve
standing Immediately behind the
serve of men is, low and your num-
bers insufficient, then your, call to
relieve a tired unit, to meet sud
den pressure at any point, involves
bringing men from great distances
to the point in question. You have
not enough men to stand everywhere
behind the front line. The reserves
are --sparsely scattered groups placed
at few points. Every case of q sud
den call involves long journeys to the
front and UP and down the line:
That was precisely our difficulty
during the great enemy attacks of
March and April last. The enemy
compelled our dwindling reserves to
travel at most exhausting speed up
and down along the line, with bad
lateral communications, and the
strain on the strength of the French
and British armies was increasingly
severe. at one moment perilously Sc
we're. For instance. hardly had the
Germans ended the great attack at
the front at Amiens on April when.
four days later. they launched an at
tack far north against the Lys front.
nearly sixty miles away on a
straight; line and more than one hum
dred miles by the roundabout lateral
communications which we were then