The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-12
EASTERN ARMY CoMBED OUT

General headquarters still had a re. serve of it's own in the eastern army and the army of occupation in Ru- mania As the situation became more settled, all men under 35 were with drawn from those formations, the strength of which was simultaneously reduced, so that their fighting value was greatly diminished by these meas ures. The special arms and line of communication troops formed another though limited source of reinforce ments.
 I also tried to extend the system of replacing men by women. and a female auxiliary telephone corps was to be started.
 The recruiting situation need not have been so bad The loss by deser- tiOn was uncommonly high. The num- Der that got into neutral countries C. E., HoIland-ran into tens of thou sands, and n far greater number lived happily at home, tncitly tolerated by their fellow citizens and completely unmolested by the authorities They of whom there were thousands more, reduced the battle strength of the fighting troops, especially of the in- funtry, to which most of them be- ionged. to . vital degree.
 If these men had been got hold of the recruiting difficulty would not have been so great. More recruits could have been raised if only the fighting spirit had been stronger at home. It was on this spirit that the ultimate decision depended--but it failed.
 LOSSES MATTER OF COURSE
 War consumes men; that is It's na- ture The modern defensive battle is hop !, ott son more in favor of the latter. >he months of August. September and Oc- tober, 1918, cost us far more than March, April and May of the same year. In the earlier months our losses consisted mainly of slightly wounded men, who came back. The prisoners we lost in the defense had to be struck off as lost for good. 1
 That the large masses which were led into battle woud suffer heavily casualties. in spite of all tactical count- CT measures, was unfortunately . mat ter of course.
 The recruiting difficulties were not removed by March, 1918, although few hundred thousand men were avail able. They continued to be an un- certain factor in the tremendous con- test. England and France had similar difficulties to contend with. Tn the autumn of 1917 the English divisions still had 12 battalions; now they were reduced to nine. Since the Aisne- Cham pagne battle France had disbanded far more than 100 battalions as we'll as territorial and tentorial reserve form ations.
 The new American formations, which cOud not have much fighting value, had not yet arrived. The submarine war had continued effective; we could not estimate the amount of tonnage the entente would set aside for transport work.
 SECRET AGITATION IN ARMY
 The army had thrown off the de- pressing effects of the previous years fighting in the knowledge that 1t was passing from the defense to the at- tack. It's moral appeared completely restored, but in March. 1918. 1t could not be denied that secret agitation was making progress here and there.
 When the 1919 class reached the re- cruit depots. we began to receive com plaints about It's general qualities and spirit. Moreover, many of tfe recruits 1 seemed to have great deal of money. which must have greatly embittered the older men. who had been long time in the field.
 Nothing had been done to strengthen :