ENGLISH WAR FORCES
The Men at the Front--The Recruiting--English Losses--Horses and
Ships--War Supplies--Barring the Germans.
I really admire the English censorship and the manner in which it can
withhold information from the English people, and I see the usefulness
of much of the withholdings. You are some days in England before you
realize that there are now no weather reports--not even for Channel
crossings. Nobody really cared for them in London. Everybody there
knew what the weather was, and nobody could tell what it was to be. If
reports were printed, they would fool only the German Zeppelins; but
cable reports might be quite another thing. So you can't cable your
family: "Weather fine, come over."
Of course Germany should not be allowed to know the English forces,
their exact number and distribution. I was told over and over again in
good newspaper quarters in London that the English had only 100,000 men
at the front, and did not propose to have any more until Kitchener led
his army of a million men or more to the Continent next spring.
I, of course, said nothing, but I knew a great deal better, both from
War-Office sources and from contact with the English officers in France.
It would not be right, although information was not given me in
confidence, to attempt to name the exact number and position of troops
Kitchener had on the Continent toward the close of December. But I may
tell what anybody was free to pick up on French soil. I asked an
English officer of good rank how many men the English had at the front
and he responded promptly 220,000 at the front, and 50,000 on the lines
of communication. He was right for that date in early December, but
later more troops were sent over. Indeed, they were quietly going and
coming all the time across the Channel, and, notwithstanding losses,
the number at the front was being steadily augmented. There were also
troops in training on French soil, and 550,000 in condition for
shipment from England.
Kitchener is one of the greatest reserve-supply men in the world. He
is a natural-born banker; he keeps his eye on his reserves fully as
much as on his activities, and perhaps more so.
When he called for 100,000 troops the British public became weary and
demanded to know how long before he would get them. This gave an
impression throughout the world that English recruiting was very slow;
but when forced to show down his hand, Kitchener had to admit that
under the call for 100,000 men he had accepted many more and was still
accepting.
Then they raised the call to a million, and in December Kitchener had
more than 1,000,000 men under that call, but I was particular to
ascertain that he had not made a call for a second million. It was all
under the call for 1,000,000 men to arm.
But I did learn from authoritative sources that a house-to-house
canvass, and millions of circulars sent out, had received responses
that showed the War Office where the number of recruits, or men in
training, could be quickly put above 2,000,000 the moment there was
need or room for them.
When England sent her first expeditionary force of 100,000 men to the
Continent there was no public report of how steadily it was augmented.
The official announcement was simply that the line should not be
diminished and that all losses should be made good.
An American acquaintance of mine, whom I found in France fighting in
the uniform of the English, had made the declaration from his quick
perception of the situation at the outset that if before January 1 the
English should have sent over only another 100,000 men, they would have
only 100,000 left there at the end of the year.
I found his estimate of losses correct. The English casualties at the
end of 1914 were over 100,000,--killed, wounded, prisoners, and
missing,--or fully the number of the first Expeditionary Force.
Yet every week and every month the forces of the English grew larger
and never smaller. The filling in of the gaps and the augmentation of
the English forces and their maintenance, munitions, and supplies was
but the smaller part of the work of the War Office.
The great problem was to compass the situation as a worldwide war and
summon and put into an effective fighting machine the resources of the
Empire.
"Not alone the men but the machinery," said Kitchener, "must win this
war."
England had to put into operation machinery, financial and diplomatic,
machinery of men, guns, and transportation, belting the whole world and
bringing the whole forward as a complete organization, yielding here
and pressing forward there, but always firmly pressing to the one
desired end--the crushing, crumpling and destroying of the war
machinery of Germany. At the beginning England could not turn out
10,000 rifles a week; and a rifle can shoot well for only about 1000
rounds. Yet in December a single contractor in England was turning out
40,000 a week, and every possible contractor there and elsewhere had
his hands full.
Kitchener must compass every detail from the rifle to the supply base;
from the seasoned wood for that rifle right down to the number of
troops he must have on the Continent when it comes to a settlement;
for, says Kitchener, "You cannot draw unless you hold cards."
The broad sweep of the English preparations may be indicated by this:
that when war broke out England not only commandeered horses in every
city, village, and highway of England, taking them from carriages and
from under the saddle, but started buying them over the seas. Of
English shipping she gathered into her war-fold such a number of boats
as I do not dare to repeat. She gathered in under the admiralty flag
so many steamships from the mercantile marine that those which were
found most expensive to operate were soon turned back into the channels
of trade. With the many hundred steamers that she commandeered she set
about transporting everything needed, including horses, from over the
ocean.
The French bought their horses by the thousand in Texas and contracted
at good prices for their shipment to Bordeaux. Steamship rates became
almost prohibitive, and the horses arrived from their long journey in
poor condition. England inspected the horses in America, paid for
them, and then put them in charge of her own men on her own ships, and
landed them by the shortest routes in England and on the Continent, in
prime condition.
Although Germany had been buying liberally of horses in Ireland as
early as March, when the long arm of Great Britain reached out there
was no failure in her mounts for the cannon and cavalry divisions. For
good horses at home and abroad she did not hesitate to pay as high as
$350.
Americans should not forget that this war has brought about the
greatest contraction in ocean tonnage that has ever been seen. I
estimate that about one fourth of the world's oversea tonnage has been
commandeered, interned, or put out of service. Before the war the
Germans had nearly one eighth of the world's mercantile tonnage. That
is now interned, destroyed, or tied up, outside the trade on the
Baltic. As much more has been taken by the Allies from the mercantile
to the war marine. It must also be figured that the Baltic and other
seas hold locked-in ships, and the bottom of the sea likewise holds
some more.
Considering the sudden demand upon the world's mercantile tonnage and
its sudden curtailment, it is surprising that ocean commerce has not
been more interfered with or made to pay even higher rates than the
abnormal ones now existing.
Of war-tonnage, besides three superdreadnoughts purchased and four
finished before the end of 1914, the British have under construction to
be finished in 1915 ten battleships of from 25,500 to 27,500 tons,
armed with 15-inch guns. The French have finished four of 23,000 tons,
with 13 1/2-inch guns, and are finishing three more. The Russians are
at work upon six of 23,000 tons, with 12-inch guns. The Japanese are
building one superdreadnought of 30,000 tons, with 14-inch guns, and
three battle-cruisers of 27,500 tons and 27-knot speed, with 14-inch
guns.
Churchill, it will be remembered, figured that England could lose one
battleship each month and still maintain her full strength. While the
building of war-tonnage seems to be well in hand, there is no
corresponding replacement of mercantile tonnage.
I have the highest authority for the statement that the world possesses
no machinery at the present time to manufacture war-material at the
rate at which the nations of Europe have been using it during the first
hundred days of the war.
At one time the German armies were exploding 120,000 shells a day in
France and Belgium. The response from the French alone was 80,000
shells a day, and General Joffre made a request that his supply be put
up to 100,000 per day. This is for shells of all sizes, and the
estimate to me was of an average cost of two pounds, or ten dollars,
per shell. Some of the big German shells cost as high as $500 each.
In some kinds of shrapnel, holding 300 bullets, there are more than
thirty pieces of mechanism.
Within forty-eight hours after England declared war she had engaged the
total output of an American manufacturer, whose machinery was an
important part of the shell-making business. An American factory in
Connecticut received orders for $25,000,000 worth of cartridges which
would mean, at five cents a cartridge, 500,000,000 rounds of
ammunition. I know of a single order to America from England for
10,000,000 horseshoes.
Through a single agency in America more than $150,000,000 worth of
war-supplies was placed several weeks ago. I do not know whether this
included a single order, of which I have knowledge, for 3,000,000
American rifles, delivered over three years at $30 a rifle, or
$90,000,000. The company receiving this order had to work so quickly
to install new machinery that old buildings were dynamited to clear the
land.
Such orders to America are bound to tell upon our exports, and,
combined with the advance in food-stuffs, the loss in cotton values by
the outbreak of the war is offset more than twice over.
America must feel the effect of these orders when the goods go forward
in increasing quantities. They are paid for as promptly as shipped.
Many an American factory has been put on three eight-hour shifts for
the day's work on these orders.
A Southern manufacturer received an order for 5000 dozen pairs of socks
to be shipped weekly for six months. The price was under $1.00 per
dozen, with ten per cent of wool in them. He complained that he was
making only twenty cents per dozen profit, while if he had not been so
anxious for the order, he might just as well have got a price that
would have shown more than twice this profit.
In boots and shoes, England, instead of giving orders to this country,
has been buying leather in America, and filling all her own factories.
It is the policy of England to fill every workshop in her tight little
island before she permits business to overflow.
To-day there are no unemployed in Great Britain, except in the cotton
districts dependent upon German trade. Wage advances and overtime are
the rule rather than the exception. The one country that the warring
world must turn to for supplies is the United States, and that in
increasing measure. Orders for $300,000,000 of war goods already
received must be duplicated several times.
Every American automobile manufacturer able to deliver motor-trucks in
lots of one hundred, has received his orders for shipments to the
Allies.
Germany has now no base from which to get many important supplies. In
a long contest the Allies will supply motor-cars, shells, guns, and
ammunition to a far greater extent than Germany can manufacture them.
Factories for this work are expanding in both Russia and America. The
English do not speak against the Germans as a people. They believe
them seriously misled by Prussian militarism, which they declare must
be crushed absolutely.
Where formerly England was an open door to Germans and suspicions
against German spies were laughed at, the bars are now sharply up.
Most of the golfing clubs have voted to suspend the activities of
members with German antecedents.
At the clubs in Pall Mall, notices have been posted requesting members
not to introduce during the war Germans or those of German descent.
Membership on the Stock Exchange is not continuous as in this country,
and at the March elections in 1915 there will be a dropping out of
German names.