Luckily such figures are wholly changed by the enormous rate of the enemy's wastage. The Russians had lost men almost as rapidly as the enemy, but the Russian losses could be and were made good. The handicap of the blockade under which Russia suffered permitted her to maintain only a certain number at the front, but she could continually draft in support of those numbers; and though she lost in the first seven months of the war quite four hundred thousand in prisoners, and perhaps three-quarters of a million in other casualties, her strength of somewhat over three millions was maintained at the close of the first period. In the same way drafts had further maintained the British numbers. The French had lost not more than one-fifth of a million in prisoners, and perhaps a third of a million or a little more in killed and permanently disabled--that is, unable to return to the fighting line. In the case of both the French and the British sanitary conditions were excellent. You have, then, quite 35 for your number in the West, and quite 33 for your number in the East of the Allied forces at the end of the winter; but of your enemy forces you may safely deduct 45-50 might be a truer estimate; and it is remarkable that those who have watched the matter carefully at the front are inclined to set the total enemy losses higher than do the critics working at home. But call it only 45 (of which 5 are prisoners), and you have against the 68 Allies in East and West no more at the end of this second period than 75 of the enemy. The following diagram illustrates in graphic form the change that six months have produced. [Illustration: Sketch 15.] In other words, at the end of the winter and with the beginning of the spring, although the enemy still has a numerical preponderance, it is no longer the overwhelming thing it was when the war began, and that change in numbers explains the whole change in the campaign. The enemy was certain of winning mainly because he was fighting more than equal in the East, and at first nearly two to one, later quite four to three, in the West. Those are the conditions of the late summer of 1914. 1915, before it was a third over, had seen the numbers nearly equalized. With the summer of 1915 we might hope to see the numbers at last reversed, and, after so many perilous months, a total (not local) numerical majority at last appearing upon the side of the Allies. If ever this condition shall arrive before the enemy can accomplish a decisive result in either field the tide will have turned.