The feverish haste with which the enemy's attacks are multiplied as the
field of the offensive is enlarged, speaks eloquently of the conscious
need to bring the grand adventure to a speedy climax. But this haste
involves heavy moral as well as numerical usury. Instead of a full
normal period for refilling and new equipment, including rest at the
rear, or in a quiet sector, and a course of fresh training being given
to a division withdrawn from the line owing to its losses, it is
hurriedly reconstituted and pushed back into the battlefront after as
few days as possible.
Up to now the German armies have been sustained, not only by
reinforcements from Russia, but by the long rest of the Winter months;
otherwise they could not have accomplished what they have done.
These sources of strength are being rapidly exhausted. The human
material--cannon food--is failing in quality. The field depots have
been emptied of recruits. Men from the depots in Germany are rushed
to the front. Cavalry officers are dismounted to fill gaps in the
infantry. Men detached for special work are called back to their units,
and still the war god is unsatisfied.
Incorporation of the 1920 class began in April and May. Miners and
mechanics are again turned into the fighting ranks, ill as they can be
spared from industry. It is probable that not a division has been left
in the east that would be fit for the western front. Wounded men and
invalids imperfectly cured are pressed back into service. And behind
the armies thus replenished there is the nation, hungry, enfeebled,
terrorized, uttering words of despair even in its letters to the front.
Ludendorff may well hurry!