The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-27
The German Lines of Retreat

5000 to obtain the total infantry. This
 was especially the case when he was at tacking; for instance-fifteen divisions attacked and were broken by Gouraud east of Rheims on July 15, and we are fairly sure that these b divisions rep
 resented more than 100000 men, We are
 still more confident that they represent
 ed something like 130, 900, infantry, or at
 any rate well over 125,000. Even the Il
 divisions immediately in reserve behind these 15, whose role 1t was after the ex- pected rupture of the French line to come up between the attacking divisions and continue the rapid advance upon
 Chalons, probably upon the same scale, stood for something like 10000 men, of whom 5000 were infantry, counting in the special new reserves to create which drafts had been made upon the regiments along the line.
 Today these figures no longer apply. The average strength of the German in- fantry division in the west is certainly not 5000, and probably is not much more
 than 5000 No less than 9 divisions have disappeared altogether-that is, they have been broken up to fill the gaps left by their fellows. and time and again we learn through prisoners, or captured pa pers, or other means, that particular units which did famous work in the past and therefore used especial effort in covering this retreat have been reduced to skeletons. For instance, the Sixth di- vision, the most famous of those which
 attacked Verdun two and one-half years
 ago, had when it received it's last ham mering this month not 20oo infantry pres- ent against our attack. l could name guard divisions of which the depletion is equally severe. It is true that these fig ures have been taken after a series of very severe actions and before the units had time to retire and become rested and recruited, but they are such figures as were quite unknown before the pres ent phase of the war.
 To recruit losses so enormous there l is wholly insufficient supply of men nothing but hospital retnrns and class 1920 boys of IS, nearly quarter of whom are still under IS, and who num- Der on paper. 450, 900, but who in num- l bers actually used are very much less. Indeed, the experiment of putting them l on the front line had already been tried earlier in the course of the pres- ent enemy defeat and had partially broken down, and l believe we possess an order of the enemy higher command | saving that they had for the moment beer withdrawn. This depletion of | numbers, which must be the constant theme for the present moment governs 1 today the whole war and has had two | indirect effects of the highest conse- quence quite apart from the effect of weakening the mere numerical strength of the line to be held
 The first of these effects is the dif- ficultry of giving the proper rest to di- visions retired from the line We have cases in which units withdrawn for re- pose were compelled in the same week 60 re-enter the front The old rule of retiring division when it had lost from fifth to a quarter of it's fight ing strength of infantry no longer ap plies German divisions are retired | when the higher command Is compelle ] to retire them. not before, and they
 are continually thrown in again after grossly insufficient repose and grossly l insufficient recruitment
 The second indirect effect of this de pletion in numbers is the necessity of ! perpetual movement. most exhaust ing effort for any army Let me ex- plain. When you have sufficiency of men you hold a particular line with. i say 100 units. and in reserve at vari-
 ous parts behind the line. distributed all along the length, say 50 units. Your sufficiency of men permits you tc adopt this disposition, and as the units on the fighting line are used up VOL withdraw them for recruiting and re- pose and replace them by units taken 1 from the reserve. These units, kept by the shortest route of communica- tions. They relieve other units stand ing immediately in front of them Again, if sudden pressure is brought
 to the right of your line you meet 1t by drawing from the reserve which
 stands right behind the right end; then If suddenly the enemy transfers his fn laff bringing up the reserve standing i'm. mediately behind the units to the left
 But when your reserve of men is low
 and your numbers insufficient, then your call to relieve tired unit. to
 meet sudden pressure at any point, involves bringing men from great dis
 tances to the point in question You nave not enough men to stand every
 where behind the front line. The re-
 serves are sparsely scattered groups
 placed at few points, Every case of
 sudden call involves long journeys
 to the front and up and down the line. That was precisely our difficulty dur ing the great enemy attacks of March and April last. The enemy compelled our dwindlng reserves to travel at most exhaustlng speed up and down along the line, with bad lateral communications. and the strain on the strength of the French and British armies was increas-
 lnsly severe, at one moment perilously severe. For instance. hardly had the
 Germans ended the great attack at the front at Amiens on April 4 when, four
 days later. they launched an attack far
 north against the Lys front nearly 60
 miles away on a straight line and more
 than 100 miles by the roundabout lat
 eial communications which we were then
 compelled by the loss of the Amiens rail-
 way to use.
 As consequence the British army only
 held the enemy thrust from April to
 l3 with great difficulty The French
 reserve division could not arrive until
 the third or fourth day of the battle,
 and even then necessarily arrived in an exhausted condition.
 The tables are now turned and we are