New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
The artillery has displayed a superiority in the use of its admirable
material, which is recognized by the Germans themselves.
_LONDON, March 27, (Correspondence of The Associated Press.)--Further
installments of the French official review of the condition of the
French Army after six months of war have been obtained by The Associated
Press. The sixth installment deals with material, artillery, transport,
and supplies, and the seventh takes up the situation of the German Army
and makes an analysis of the German forces in the field and available
for service._
_The first chapter of the seventh installment, headed "The German
Effort," opens with a statement as to the German forces at the beginning
of the campaign. The writer says:_
The military effort of Germany at the outset of the campaign exceeded
all anticipations. Her design was to crush the French Army in a few
weeks under a tremendous mass of troops. Nothing was neglected to bring
that mass together.
The number of German army corps in time of peace is twenty-five. When
war began the German General Staff put in the field on the two theatres
of operations: 1, as fighting troops, (active, reserve, Ersatz or
Landwehr,) sixty-one army corps; 2, as troops to guard communications
and territory, formations of the Landsturm.
In October six and a half new army corps made their appearance, plus a
division of sailors--in all seven corps. From the end of November to the
end of December there was only an insignificant increase, consisting of
the division of sailors. In January, 1915, the number of fighting
formations put into line by the German Army was therefore sixty-nine
army corps, divided as follows:
Active corps, twenty-five and a half; reserve corps, twenty-one and a
half; Ersatz brigades, six and a half; reserve corps of new formation,
seven and a half, and corps of Landwehr, eight and a half.
GERMANY'S GREAT INITIAL EFFORT.
The immense effort thus made by Germany explains itself very well, if,
having regard to the position of Germany at the opening of the war, one
considers that of the Allies. Germany desired to take advantage of the
circumstances which enabled her to make a simultaneous mobilization of
all her forces--a mobilization which the three allied armies could not
carry out so rapidly. Germany wished with the mass of troops to crush
first of all the adversary who appeared to her the most dangerous. This
effort, broken for the first time on the Marne, attained its maximum at
the moment of the battle of Flanders, in which more than fifty army
corps out of sixty-nine were pitted against the French, British, and
Belgian Armies.
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