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purposes the men of certain portions of the Ukraine, and the Mussulmans of Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The possibility of this addition to their strength constitutes a tremendous new peril for the future; but it seems reasonable to assume that, by reason of the difficulty of communication, these fresh military organizations cannot be effectuated for at least eight months.

Having made these reservations, we may regard this figure of 28,000,000 as representing the maximum, that is to say, the grand total of the mobilizable forces of Pan-Germany during 1918.

(b) This number includes two groups whose sentiments are sharply opposed. The only group upon which, as a whole, Berlin can depend -the Germans, Magyars (and this element is not altogether reliable), Bulgars, and Turksnumbers at most 18,800,000 men say, 19,000,000 in round numbers. Because of the difficulty of communication, mentioned above, with respect to the organization of troops among the new Asiatic elements, this figure would seem to represent the unelastic maximum of the genuinely Pangermanist forces for about eight months to come.

This deduction is of essential importance; for by taking it as a startingpoint, we shall comprehend clearly how it is possible for the Entente, after about six months of preparation, to subject this maximum to the overwhelming simultaneous action of an aggregation of forces so diverse and so powerful that the result must inevitably be the destruction of Pan-Germany within a very few weeks after such action shall have been started.

(c) In the armies of Pan-Germany there are 9,200,000 troops who, albeit subjects of the Central Powers, are Slavs, Latins, or Semites, and whose real interests are undeniably anti-Pangermanist. Now, on the one hand, a

considerable part of these involuntary soldiers are armed; and on the other, their state of mind, induced by their most manifest interest, inclines them to declare open rebellion against their oppressors, as soon as they shall feel that conditions will allow them to do so effectively.

It is therefore quite within bounds to say that in the armies of Pan-Germany, of every three soldiers there is one who certainly does not desire to make use of his weapons against the Entente; and one who, on the contrary, will joyfully make use of them, as soon as he shall be clearly convinced of the necessity, to assist in the destruction of PanGermany, whose continuance would perpetuate his own slavery and that of his people.

This is a fact of tremendous importance to the Allies.

The Berlin Staff feels so far from sure of the Slav and Latin troops that it dares not use them in dense masses on the Western Front. They are, for the most part, either sent into Turkey, or utilized in the garrisons of the interior, or mobilized in the munition factories of Pan-Germany. Thus the majority of them are so situated as to make an insurrectionary movement on their part particularly effective. It is for the Allies to have the intelligence to do whatever may be necessary to make the most of it.

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(b) and (c) These gross figures inIclude the children and old men elements that are clearly incapable of effective action. We must therefore deduct from these two groups the infants and youths below twenty and the old men over sixty. Our ethnical data enable us to do this scientifically.

The French census of 1911 discloses that the persons of both sexes under twenty and those above sixty make up a little less than half of the whole population. Thus, if we reduce the gross number of non-mobilized men and women by one half, we shall obtain the result sought. But the gross number of non-mobilized men (b) includes many between twenty and sixty who have been discharged, a large proportion being infirm, or sick, or sickly, and hence unfit for service. The gross figures, 13,800,000, already reduced by half, must be again reduced by a fourth to allow for this situation.

The net result of these deductions is to reduce to 14,000,000 the number of non-mobilized anti-Pangermanist men in Pan-Germany, who are capable of

effective action. This number, still quite considerable, is composed of two elements: (1) the 4,000,000 subjects of the Central Powers, whom we reckon as utilizable, are, to be sure, discharged men; but after eliminating the weak and sickly, a considerable proportion of them, whom the Austro-Boche civil service is certainly making some use of — principally in munition factories or in agriculture- are capable of taking an effective part in an insurrection. (2) As for the 10,000,000 subjects of the Entente, there are unquestionably many of them who have been deported. to work in the munition factories of Pan-Germany, or in the fields.

Thus these 14,000,000 men may be regarded as a reservoir upon which the Entente should be able to draw.

(c) Females. Reducing by one half the 47,000,000 females, we have, in round numbers, 23,000,000 women between twenty and sixty years of age.

Thus we arrive at the following table of the minimum insurrectionary forces now existing in Pan-Germany.

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These 45,000,000 men and women in Pan-Germany, whether they represent possible insurgents or centres of passive resistance, do in very truth constitute important sources of both moral and material strength. They are out of sight, and unknown in the Allied countries. Yet they exist, as the image exists, although invisible, on the undeveloped photographic plate.

The problem, then, for the Allies is, first, to grasp the actuality of these latent insurrectionary forces; then to make them known, to impress upon the forces themselves the idea of their power; and, lastly, so to organize them as to transform them into active ele

ments from the passive condition in which they now are.

3. The present status of the opposing forces may be summarized thus:

Forces of Pan-Germany. - The mobilizable forces directed from Berlin, reckoned on the maximum basis of twenty per cent of the population, are to-day about 28,000,000 men, made up of two elements:

(a) About 19,000,000 troops whom the German Staff can regard as reliable: Germans, Magyars (with the reservation indicated above), Bulgars, and Turks.

(b) Some 9,000,000 Slav and Latin troops incorporated in the armies of Pan-Germany in opposition to their real sentiments; of whom 8,000,000 may be led to withdraw if a certain propaganda and a certain condition of affairs shall be created by the Entente.

In reality, therefore, 19,000,000 Germans and pro-Germans must be ready to respond to all military necessities; to keep in their ranks, by sheer terrorism, 9,000,000 soldiers who are there solely by dint of force and compulsion; and to stand guard over a vast expanse of territory, the population of which, in at least half of the superficial area of Pan-Germany, is hostile to them.

Forces of the Entente.-To avoid an exaggerated estimate, these forces are estimated without regard to the smaller Allies, or to Japan, whose intervention is at least probable, or to the colonial contingents. Furthermore, the basis of calculation will be fifteen per cent of the population of the European Allies. We have then,

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To this number we must add the American contingents. It is evident, in view of the tonnage problem, that they will never be able to arrive in Europe in numbers proportioned to the population of the United States. It will be a very great achievement if 1,500,000 American combatants can be sent to Europe, with all the essential materials and supplies. Let us assume that that number is both possible and probable. In that case the mobilizable Allied forces which can be expected to play an active part in Europe will amount to 18,300,000 European Allies and 1,500,000 Americans—say, 20,000,000 in round numbers.

IV

Conclusion

The figures given above make possible the following conclusions:

(a) The mobilizable forces in Europe at the disposal of the Allies (20,000,000) are numerically greatly inferior to the comprehensive forces of Pan-Germany (28,000,000), and practically equal to the forces of which the German Staff can be reasonably sure (19,000,000).

It is difficult to see how the Allies can add to their mobilizable effectives in Europe to any considerable extent. On the other hand, in a few months the Germans will be, perhaps, in a position to make use of fresh troops supplied by Mussulman communities in Russia and Central Asia. Therefore, by carrying on the conflict by means of a purely military strategy, it is probable that the Allies will find themselves numerically inferior to the Germans and their Allies, as is already the case on the Western Front.

(b) But the situation of the Allies would be completely transformed if they should, in their turn, like the Germans, resort to the strategy of the political sciences; for it would enable them

to exploit to their advantage the tremendous sources of weakness that exist in the very heart of Pan-Germany.1

Indeed, in that case, the Allies could systematically arm, by the aerial route, a part of the 14,000,000 anti-Pangermans, non-mobilized, in Central PanGermany, and thus bring about an insurrection in the regions traversed by the vital strategic communications of Pan-Germany. Secondly, they could, by means of such insurrections, bring about a state of affairs, both moral and material, which would enable the 8,000,000 troops embodied against their will in the German armies, to revolt in their turn.

Assuming this form of strategy to be adopted, the 19,000,000 Germans and pro-Germans would have to face the hostile action, active or passive, of 20,000,000 Allied troops, 8,000,000 of their own troops, in revolt or on strike, and 14,000,000 possible insurgent civilians, or 42,000,000 in all.

(c) The 23,000,000 anti-Pangermanist women in Pan-Germany are for the most part compelled to work on the land or in the munition factories. As they represent a by-no-means negligible force, if the propaganda were ef fective, they could be induced to strike. In fact, in certain districts which I know well, the women are capable of playing a very useful part in a revolt. Thus, the 19,000,000 Germans and

1 See M. Chéradame's article in the Atlantic for March, 1918.

pro-Germans would have to face widely varying but combined hostile forces of 65,000,000 human beings (42,000,000 men and 23,000,000 women).

To sum up: the purely military strategy leaves 20,000,000 Allies face to face with 28,000,000 Germans, proGermans, and troops enslaved by them.

The strategy of the political sciences would transform the situation, for it would subject 19,000,000 Germans and pro-Germans to the submergent action of the endlessly diverse enveloping powers of 65,000,000 persons, of whom 47,000,000 are already in Pan-Ger

many.

If the Germans had been in our place, would they not long ago have made use of the anti-German elements in Pan-Germany, considering that in Russia they have derived the enormous profit that we all know from elements favorable to their cause, although they were much less numerous than those utilizable by the Allies? Under these conditions can the latter refuse to adopt, at last, the strategy of the political sciences?

Far from working to the prejudice of the Western Front, it would work altogether to its advantage; for nothing could afford greater relief to the Allied troops from the terrible pressure that they are having to withstand on that front, than an uprising, scientifically organized, for the liberation of Central Europe.

THE CONTRIBUTORS' CLUB

A FATHER TO HIS ENLISTED SON

I WAS not surprised to learn from your letter that you had finally decided to enlist in your country's service; and I found myself at once in a turmoil of conflicting emotions. I wonder if I can tell you just how I felt. I was proud of you, my son. I realized that you had for months and months been revolving and re-revolving this question in your mind, and that this decisive step had not been precipitously taken. You had talked it over repeatedly with me, and even more frequently with your mother. You had listened with eager attention to the advice of those of your friends who were older, as well as of those who are of your own age. We were all pretty unanimous, you know, in opposing your plan. We honestly thought that, as you are only eighteen years old, and as your education is incomplete, further training in school and college would make you more efficient in the aid that you could later render your country. We thought that in later years-when we have emerged from the welter of this relentless war, and when the world has once more swung back into sanity and repose you would keenly regret the loss of your diploma and this grim interruption of all your school associations.

Perhaps we were wrong. We older folk, we are discovering, have been wrong in many, many things. The shadows of war that have hung over this darkened earth ever since August, 1914, have shown us that we had for years and years been groping through ignorance and gloom, all unconscious of the errors and the misconceptions in

which we were so deeply and so unwittingly enshrouded. Perhaps these present war-shadows through which we are now threading our unknown way are in reality no deeper and no less perplexing and menacing than those through which we had previously walked in the bold assurance of ignorance and error. The facts were before us, but we refused to face them. Prussia had for years been preaching its soulless doctrine of Pangermanism. Treitschke and Nietzsche and Bernhardi had boldly proclaimed a philosophy which was in harmony with the nefarious plans of the Junkers and the war-lords. Men with the boldness and the intelligence of M. Chéradame saw these dangers and proclaimed a general warning. But what did such an abstract view as Pangermanism mean in face of the concrete interests in which our trivial lives were centred — the fatuous game of piling up dollars, the relative merits of the popular 'movie' actors, the batting averages of the prominent baseball players, the securing of a high place in society's column?

Then I realized, too, how inaccurate and false had been my own analysis of international questions. I had for years felt that civilization had brought us to a plane where war was no longer possible. I think I must have told you of a conversation I had with the president of our company in June, 1914. He had just returned from Europe, where he had, as he thought, been able to gauge accurately the temper of the European peoples. He knew that there were bitter national hatreds, and that the war in the Balkans had produced a maze of perplexities which might, in an ancient

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