since enlisted in both services.' In order to arrive at the numbers available on Sept. 15, 1915, to replace the wastage in the assumed army of one million during the year ending Sept. 14, 1916, we must therefore deduct from the aggregate 1,000,000 serving at the front, some 300,000 in the Navy, and about 400,000 casualties, leaving an available number not far short of' 1,300,000, nearly half of which would be needed for home defence. It is obvious from what has already been said, that this number is 'far short of' what will be required if we are to keep an army of one million men, or anything like it, in the field, even during the year ending Sept. 14, 1916; and it makes no allowance at all for the prolongation of the war beyond that date.

Our object is to indicate the complexity of the question with which the Government have to deal, and not to suggest definite conclusions which could only be based on figures and probabilities of which none but the responsible authorities have accurate knowledge. It is apparent from Ministerial utterances that the state of recruiting is unsatisfactory. Thus Lord Kitchener stated in the House of Lords on Sept. 15 that, while 'every effort has been made to obtain our requirements under the present system,' the problem of maintaining the army up to strength during 1916 has cost us anxious thought, which has been accentuated and rendered more pressing by the recent falling-off in the numbers coming forward to enlist.' We shall,' he added, 'require a large addition to the number of recruits joining.'

How the necessary stimulus is to be applied without imposing legal obligation to serve is, doubtless, one aspect of the question which is engaging the attention of the Government. Where appeal and pressure have failed, it is hard to see what further expedients can be adopted that would leave the voluntary system any vestige of title to its name. It is not only necessary to get recruits, but to obtain them in batches adapted to our facilities for training; and these batches must become available at least six months before they are required to

* Estimated to Sept. 15. No allowance is made for convalescents returned to duty, but an unknown number of sick is not included.

take the field. These requirements demand a kind of organisation to which the voluntary system does not lend itself. In critical times recruits have been plentiful; but the crisis must be foreseen and provided against six months ahead, if operations are not to be frustrated by want of reinforcements. The Trades Unions have declared their readiness to assist; but their organisation does not include the whole field of recruiting, and its power is exercised by compulsion, enforced by methods not recognised by law, and not amenable to Government control.

If a system of legal compulsion is to be adopted, no time should be lost in evolving the necessary organisation; for, if it is to be established on an efficient and equitable basis, months will pass before it can become operative. While it would aim at developing to the utmost the fighting and industrial powers of the nation, which would involve the subordination of private interests to the needs of the State, just claims to individual exemption from military service should not be ignored. Rules to govern exemptions should be drawn up beforehand, in order that there may be no inequality. The requirements of indispensable industries would need exhaustive consideration; and the allotment of individuals to industries and to the army would be a task requiring careful discrimination if both are to attain the highest possible efficiency. And, when these and other preliminaries had been completed, the recruits would have to be put through an ample course of training. Instead of submitting to the guidance of those who urge the Government to wait and see' the present system collapse, it is necessary to look a year ahead. A haphazard scheme of compulsion, hurriedly extemporised, would infallibly be tainted with the worst defects of indiscriminate conscription.

A heavy responsibility rests upon the Government, heavier than the late Government bore when it declared war. At that time it was a question--so at least it appeared to the public-of fulfilling international obligations; and the public, with few exceptions, supported the Government. Now, as everybody knows, it is a question not of fulfilling treaty obligations, but of saving Europe from Prussian domination, and the British

Empire from destruction. It is deplorable that, at so grave a crisis, there should be any uncertainty as to the means requisite to ensure success, or any hint of opposition to National Service if it should be deemed necessary to adopt such a measure for the duration of the war. The prolonged deliberation of the Government suggests doubt or divided counsels; and the delay in announcing their decision is causing disquietude to the more thoughtful part of the community, and giving time for proGerman influences to work to the detriment of the national safety. It is to be hoped that their decision will soon be announced, and that if, as seems likely, it should involve the temporary abandonment of the voluntary system, there may be no half-measures which, besides operating unfairly and causing dissatisfaction, would fall short of developing the full power, military and industrial, of the nation. For we believe, with many others who have had opportunities, in recent years, of acquiring some knowledge of German organisation, and of the spirit which pervades and actuates the German army and people, that nothing less than the full development of the national resources will ensure the decisive victory which can alone lead to a lasting peace. Those who, during the past half-century, have guided the destinies of Germany, were well aware that in a war of nations it is the spirit of the people that makes the army formidable; and, while perfecting the military organisation, they did not neglect to imbue the people with national aims and aspirations. The fruit of their labours has ripened during war to a degree that, probably, no one anticipated. As a recent neutral visitor to Germany remarked (Times,' Aug. 18), Germany at war has an intensity about it almost impossible to realise. The country is at war, and is doing nothing else, and thinking of nothing else.'

FENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Art. 16.—THE WARE PUBLIC

LIBRARY

I.—BY LAND.

At the beginning of July, the period at which we resume our review of the war, the Russian army in Courland was in occupation of the line of the rivers Windawa, Wenta, and Dubissa. West of the Middle Niemen the continuation of the line lay approximately through Kalvaria and Augustovo to Ossowetz, and thence, on the Narew front, through Kolno and Przasnysz to the Vistula. On the Vistula front, north of the Pilitza, the Russians continued to occupy the positions on the rivers Bzura and Rawka which they had taken up in December. Between the Pilitza and the Upper Vistula they were falling back slowly in conformity with the movement of the armies in South-Eastern Poland, which were retiring from the Galician frontier towards the Ivangorod-Kovel railway; and on July 1 Austrian troops occupied Josefov. Between the Vistula and the Bug heavy fighting was proceeding on the line Josefov-Krasnik-Zamosc. In Galicia the Russians were retiring towards the Upper Bug and the Zlota Lipa; and, below the confluence of the latter river with the Dniester, they held the left bank of the Dniester except at Zaleszyki, which had been occupied by the Austrians on June 11.

The operations had just entered on a new phase, of which the principal scene lay in Eastern Poland. Mackensen, after occupying Lemberg on June 22, had wheeled his right wing to the left so as to come into line with his left wing, which, under the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand, had been covering the advance on Lemberg from a possible flank attack from the north. In the general advance which followed, the River Wieprz formed the line of demarcation between the right and left wings, Cholm and Lublin being the respective objectives. Concurrently with this movement the army of Woyrsch, operating between the Pilitza and the Upper Vistula, pressed forward towards Ivangorod; the effect of these combined movements being to threaten the connexion between the Russian armies operating in Southern and Eastern Poland, separated, as they were, by the broad stream of the Vistula. Ivangorod, the

permanent defences of which had long been obsolete, was the critical point, as it guards the only permanent bridges over the Middle Vistula above Warsaw. Its capture by Woyrsch would lay open the rear of the Russian army east of the river, while, if it should fall to Mackensen, the army opposing Woyrsch would be similarly exposed. Moreover, it formed a connecting link between the German strategic railways and the Russian system in Eastern Poland. Its capture would therefore be an important step towards gaining possession of the line of the Vistula.

It soon became apparent, however, that the Germans cherished more ambitious projects than the acquisition of the line of the Vistula. Reports published towards the end of June indicated that considerable hostile forces were assembling on the Narew front between Kolno and the Mlawa railway. An army under Gallwitz captured a position north of Przasnysz on June 25; and on July 6 a second army under Scholtz, composed of reserve and landwehr troops, took the offensive in the Orzec valley. By the middle of July the Russians had fallen back to the Narew on the front between Lomza and Pultusk. In the meantime the army of Below in Courland, having been reinforced, began offensive operations on the entire front between the Baltic and the Lower Niemen. Before the end of July Below's left wing had occupied Windau, and had reached the line of the rivers Aa and Eckau, within twenty miles of Riga on the west and south; and his right wing had advanced to within forty miles of the Petrograd-Wilna railway between Dwinsk and Swentsiany. About the same time there was a renewal of activity on the Niemen front, the objective of which was the fortress of Kovno. These operations, considered as a whole, pointed to the design of occupying the whole of Poland as far as the line of the Bug, and of gaining possession of the line of the Niemen and the Dwina, including the important port of Riga, which would be used as a fresh base of supply.

Mackensen's advance, and the Russian retreat towards the Ivangorod-Kovel railway, tended to separate the armies in Eastern Poland from those in Galicia and to weaken the link which connected them on the Bug. This, together with the transfer of the principal scene