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[page 54]
105
(7).
time and be a very expensive process I had little doubt, but I thought that a start had been made. I am forced to think now that I was a bit premature in my hopes. Possibly our next Spring's offensive will mark the beginning of the end and I am confident that this end will be brought about not by shortage of money, food or munitions, but solely by wastage of men until the enemy has insufficient soldiers to hold her fronts. When that time comes she will sky the towel. Germany will never let herself be driven back to the Rhine and so allow our big guns to get to work on her towns. The end will come suddenly and with the line - at least on the Western Front, and I am assuming that the battle fields on this front will decide the future of Europe - very much where it stands now. But we have yet to kill a lot of Germans before he will give in, and we are going to lose a lot in the killing. The next Allied push will need to be better controlled and not a one-after-the-other affair like this year's effort. I once saw a dozen or so Fijians trying to lift a heavy spar from a steamer's deck: first one would lift and then a couple more would give a jerk, but the spar defied them until an officer came along and gave them the signal to heave all together. It is the same with us, we lack a general control. The germans have it and have made the best use of it in a way that only feeble dishonesty can deny. At every front is being felt the influence of the National reorganisation of Germany under the master management of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Under them the army is working night and day with fresh heart and everybody who has been on the Somme can give the lie direct to the facile trash about the supposed demoralization and broken spirit of the foe. Behind the army all Germany is working. In ruthless fashion the population of the occupied territories of Belgium, France Poland, Servia and (soon) Roumania are being driven into workshops or on to the land partly to swell the output of munitions and partly to release more Germans for Military service. Most important the military