Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/98

 9a TEE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

first that the maziintim nnmber of men under arms and available for duty when the war is at its height is, for the Allies, 8,000,000 men, and for the Central Powers, 6,000,000. Assume also that the annual losses from all causes (killed, wounded, missing, etc.) will average for the Allies 3,000,000, and for the Central Powers, 2,500,000. Under these assumptions the draft on available resources, in order to maintain maximum strength and make up for losses, will be at the end of the second and third years of the war :

For the Allies, 14,000,000 and 17,000,000.

For the Central Powers, 11,000,000 and 13,600,000. Now let us assume that the maximum strengths will be, for the Allies 10,000,000, and for the Central Powers 8,000,000; and the average annual losses, for the Allies 4,000,000 and for the Central Powers 3,000,000. The figures at the end of the second and third years will then stand:

For the Allies, 18,000,000 and 22,000,000.

For the Central Powers, 14,000,000 and 17,000,000. Comparing these figures with the footings in the table of ^' Besources in Men,'' the drain upon these resources, even under our maximum as- sumptions, is seen not to be excessive. But this way of putting it is possibly too favorable to the Allies. If their resources could be pooled so as to be available in as complete a sense as are those of the Central Powers, the showing would be more accurate. But this is not the case. The resources of Prance, for example, will begin to give out while those of Bussia are still not taxed to a third of their capacity. Yet the great Slavic reservoir of men is not available for the battlefields of France. Whether it can accomplish its full purpose by bringing pressure to bear upon the eastern front may be open to doubt; but that nevertheless is the rdle which it must play and it must evidently continue to be a part of the burden upon Great Britain and France to help furnish the funds for equipping the hosts of their great eastern ally.

It will be observed that in our estimates we have made no allowance for a possible " robbing of the cradle and the grave,*' as in the case of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The additional resources which might thus be made available are quite beyond our powers of estimate. But our study does clearly indicate that the one danger which either side has least to fear, if the present line-up continues, and if meas- ures are made effective for getting men into the ranks, is a deficiency of fighting men. If the crushing weight of either side could be brought to bear against any one unit of the other, as actually happened in the case of the Central Powers against Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro, the sit- uation, so far as such units are concerned, would be very different But at present that seems not very likely on any large scale. The whole resources are being brought into play over a wide front and the likeli-

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