"Our Kaiser in his New Year's message—which in Germany we all read with enthusiasm, and considered very noble and appropriate—summed up the military situation by saying that after five months' hard and hot fighting the war was still being waged almost everywhere off German soil, and on the enemies' territories. And he summed up the domestic situation by saying (and this, believe me, is true) that our nation stands in unexampled harmony, prepared to sacrifice its heart's blood for the defence of the Fatherland. Another three months have passed away, and these statements still hold good.
"The point to which I chiefly wish to call your attention is one of numbers, and I will take my estimates of numbers from your own most famous newspaper experts.
"Your claim, as I understand it, is that on New Year's Day 1915 you had—exclusive of Indian troops and Dominion contingents—between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 men training and in the field.
"Germany alone (here again I quote your English experts), without reckoning Austria, has actually put into the field during the past five months 5,000,000 men. Of these it is stated by your newspapers that she has lost in round figures 1,500,000, who have either been killed, or taken prisoners, or are too severely wounded to return as yet to the fighting line. But in spite of this depletion, your military statisticians tell us that Germany and her ally, at New Year's Day, still outnumbered the Allies on both the Eastern and the Western frontier.
"The same high authorities tell us further, that during this period of five months, the German Government has called upon the civil population, has appealed to able-bodied men who had previously been exempt from military service, and that by this means it has obtained, and has been engaged in training, arming, and equipping another 4,000,000 or 4,500,000 who, it is anticipated, will become available for war purposes in new formations, during the spring and summer of the present year.
"Our Government, therefore, according to your own account, has not been afraid to ask the civil population to serve, and this is the response. Does it look as if the national spirit had been quenched under our autocratic system?
"Out of our whole population of sixty-five millions we have apparently raised for military service on land and naval service at sea, between 9,000,000 and 11,000,000 men since this war began. Out of your whole population of forty-five millions you have succeeded in raising for these same purposes only something between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 men. And in your case, be it observed, in order to attract recruits, you have offered good wages and munificent separation allowances; while in our case men serve without pay.
"This numerical comparison is worth carrying a stage further. Germany and her ally have between them a total population of 115,000,000. The United Kingdom (including the people of European stock who inhabit the various Dominions), France, Russia, Belgium, Servia, and Montenegro number in round figures about 280,000,000. Roughly speaking, these are odds of seven to three against us. And I am leaving out of account all the non-European races—the Turks on the one side, the Japanese and the Indians on the other. If these were included the odds would be much heavier.
"And yet our Kaiser spoke but the simple truth, when he told us on New Year's Day that, after five months of war, the German armies were almost everywhere on the territories of their enemies. We are not only keeping you back and defying all your efforts to invade us; but like the infant Hercules, we have gripped you by your throats, and were holding you out at arm's length!
METHODS OF RECRUITING