Valdez daily prospector., 1918-03-20
THE. WORLD WAR
 BEHIND THE FRONT
Germany is Waging Deadly, Secret Campaign on Non-COmbatants
 and Neutral Nations

Germany continues to carry on the war, not because she believes she can obtain a military decision at the front. but because she hops to win victory against the morale of the civil popu- lation behind the front. Her chance of a military decision slipped out or her hands long ago. In 1914 when she set a rear guard of Reservists at her back door on the Russian front, and hurled the flower of her army against France, Germany believed she had a firm grip upon that world vic tory which was to be the fruition Of 40 years of preparation; but Joffre pried the Prussiap fingers loose at the Marne, and at. Verdun and the Somme the French and British tore the coveted victory entirely from her grasp. From those days to these the German General Staff have known that their dream of military victory has passed into the realm of things that might have been.
 The impossibility of German VIC tory-German threats of great spring offensive notwithstanding--- becomes clear if we look at few simple facts Thus, when the Allies hurled the German army back at the Marne, France had 100000 men Tn the fighting line and England scant 100000. Such forces as they had were outnumbered in the ratio of five to three; and they were outranged in artillery and outnumbered and out watched in all the things that go to make up military equipment.
 Since the Marne, the French army at the front has grown from 1.5OO,- 900 to 3,OOO,00O and the British army from 100000 to 2,50O,O0O. In 1914 the United States was a spectator of the conflict; but by. the time the great German offensive (should 1t ev- CT come off), is in full swing we shall have several hundred thousand men at the front. In 1914. Germany had a potential army of 9,5OO.OOO men today. one-half of that number has been killed, captured permanently crippled or died from natural causes, with the result that, on the western front, the numerical superiority has passed from Germany to the Allies, who can oppose over 6,0OO,OOO men to a maximum of 4,5OO,OOO German troops. In the matter of artillery there is an equal preponderance on the AL lied side. Last, and by no means least important is the fact that what IS leIt of the German army contains far larger proportion than the Allied ar mics of men who, by reason Of age and immature youth, are i'll suited to stand the terrific strain of modern warfare. Nor should we in this com parison forget that while in the Ger man army there has been a notice able decline in morale, due to the pinch of want and the sickness of heart which comes from endless prom ises that are thrilled, the morale of the Allied armies, who are well fed, steadily increasing in strength, and cheered by some eighteen months or all but unbroken victories from the Swiss border to the north sea, is uni formly good.
 But if Germany despairs of great military decision in the field, why does she continue to fight? She must be we'll aware that the prolongation of the brutal war which she is waging deepens the resentment against her, and will make more hard the terms to which she must subscribe when she is forced to admit that she has lost the war.
 The answer to this question is to be found in the notable successes which Germany has won in that field of con- fiict back of the front where she is a far more skilled antagonist than she has ever been in the sphere of military operations. We refer, of course, to that worldwide war-sec- ret, subtle. deadly and enormously effective, which she is ceaslessly wag- ing among the civilian population back of the military fighting lines Of the Allies. Here she has won victories more complete. of greater significance, and with infinitely more disastrous consequence to her enemies than any which she has won in the field. Wit nes the complete collapse of Russia and the partial collapse, in the fall of last year. of the hitherto indomit- able Italian armies.