Here also the method followed by Germany is easily comprehensible. At the end of October the Russian danger was beginning to become pressing, and it was necessary to win a decisive victory in the western theatre of the war. It was imperative to give international opinion the impression that Germany remained in that quarter mistress of operations. Finally, it behooved her by this victory to gain the freedom to transport a large number of army corps to Poland. We have seen that the battle of Flanders, instead of being a success for Germany, was a marked defeat. This defeat was fraught with results, and it dominates the present position of the German Army. The plans above described of the German mobilization, which had their justification in view of a prompt victory, were calculated to become extremely perilous from the moment that that victory failed to be gained. INITIATIVE LOST BY GERMANY. From that moment, in fact, Germany lost the initiative and the direction of the war. And, furthermore, she was condemned to suffer the counter-effects of the enormous and precipitate effort which she had made in vain. From the point of view of her effectiveness and her regimental cadres, (basic organization,) she had undergone a wastage which her adversaries, on the other hand, had been able to save themselves. She had, in the words of the proverb, put all her eggs in one basket, and in spite of her large population she could no longer, owing to the immediate and sterile abuse which she had made of her resources, pretend to regain the superiority of numbers. She was reduced to facing as best she could on both war fronts the unceasingly increasing forces of the Allies. She had attained the maximum of tension and had secured a minimum of results. She had thus landed herself in a difficulty which will henceforward go on increasing and which is made clear when the wastage which her army has suffered is closely studied. WASTAGE OF GERMAN EFFECTIVES. _Chapter II. of this section of the review bears the headline "Wastage of German Effectives."_ The wastage of effectives is easy to establish, it says. We have for the purpose two sources--the official lists of losses published by the German General Staff and the notebooks, letters, and archives of soldiers and officers killed and taken prisoners. These different documents show that by the middle of January the German losses on the two fronts were 1,800,000 men.