Well, in the event, that criticism proved wrong in both its conceptions. The Germans, thanks to their great courage and excellent discipline, have been able to use close formations. The immense losses these occasion have not prevented their continuous presence in the field, but, contrary to all expectations, they have not, as a rule, got home. In other words, they have, in the main, failed in the very object for which the heavy sacrifice they entail was permitted.
Another unexpected thing in which this war has warranted the old conception of arms is the exactitude of provision. Everybody thought that there would be a great novelty in this respect, and that the provisioning of so many men might break down, or, at any rate, hamper their mobility. So far from this being the case, the new great armies of this modern war have been better and more regularly provisioned than were the armies of the past, and this is particularly true upon the side of the Allies, even in the case of that astonishing march of three million of Russians across Poland with the roads in front of them destroyed and the railway useless.
WHAT TO BELIEVE IN WAR NEWS
Showing how the reports in the Press should be selected and compared, so as to arrive at a just estimate of the true position of affairs.
WHAT TO BELIEVE IN WAR NEWS
The other day there came a message to London from Italy, solemnly delivered in printer’s ink and repeated in nearly every newspaper, that the town of Cracow was invested, that the bombardment had begun, and that part of the city was in flames.
Cracow is the key of Silesia, and Silesia is the Lancashire of Prussia. The successful investment of Cracow would certainly bring the war to its last phase, and that phase one bringing rapid victory to the Allies.
But Cracow was not invested; no one had bombarded it. The whole thing was fantastic nonsense.