Then putting all these figures together and considering for the moment no wastage, the figures become as in Diagram X. [Illustration: DIAGRAM X. How will time modify the grave disproportion indicated in Diagram IX? Taking, roughly, the first few months of the war, apart from wastage, our enemies remain month after month far superior to either half of the Allies they are fighting--the French and English in the West, the Russians in the East.] _Observe in this diagram and retain it for purposes of judgment throughout the war--it is far the most important truth to retain--that, apart from wastage, our enemies remained throughout the winter far superior to either half of the Allies they are fighting. Remember that we did not put as against Austro-Germany in the West more than 6 to 9 for a long time, nor Russia in the East certainly more than 5 to 9._ The Allies combined will at last be superior to their enemy numerically, but only superior in a proportion of 11 to 9 (exclusive of wastage), and that maximum will not be reached till summer. I have italicized that paragraph because the misapprehension of so simple a truth is at the bottom of three-quarters of the nonsense one hears about the campaign. It was at the bottom of the conception that victory would be easy and short; at the bottom of the conception that it would be certain, and it is at the bottom of much foolish impatience and criticism to-day. It was a knowledge of this truth which made the German Government feel secure of success when it forced on the war at its chosen day and hour (remember with what curious superstition the Germans passed the frontier on the same day and at the same hour as in 1870), and an ignorance of it alone can account for the follies one still hears. Even as I write I rise from reading the account of a sermon by some clergyman, an Englishman--but not in England, I am glad to say--who talked of Germany, with her back to the wall, fighting the world, and expressing his admiration thereat. He had evidently never considered the element of numbers. Now what about the wastage? Luckily for us, German necessities, as well as German doctrine, have involved very heavy wastage. And, luckily for us, that wastage has been particularly heavy in the matter of officers. A discussion on numbers does not allow one to stray into the equally important moral factors of the war, but the fact may be just alluded to that the whole general military organism of Germany depends more than that of any other nation upon the gulf between the officer and those next in command. Not only can you make a French non-commissioned officer into an officer without fear of losing an atom of the moral strength of the French military organism, but the thing is done continually during peace and during war on a large scale. In Germany you can do nothing of the kind.