"The male working forces available between the ages of seventeen and sixty, as provided by the Auxiliary Service Law, will cover our requirements into the distant future, but ultimately, aside from the children, aged and sick, every man and woman will be enlisted for home defense, if necessary. The home army will be the whole nation.
"What we are engaging on is not alone the progressive mobilization of all the nation's physical strength and material rsesources resources, but the mobilization of the nation's brains. An army corps of professors, scientists, chemists, engineers, technicians, and other specialists is already working with the Kriegstaat. Our idea is to be eminently scientific and practical—no theorizing. We are working to show results.
"We are coöperating closely with the war industries of Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria. It means doubling and trebling their ammunition supply, too.
"The military successes achieved in Rumania, which synchronize with the birth of patriotic auxiliary service, are an advantage that cannot be overestimated. The Danube means everything to us. Last year we had to beg Rumania for her oil and grain and pay our good money for it too. Now we don't need to beg costly favors of Rumania.
"Lloyd George does not scare us. We have, however, not time for busying ourselves with politics; we have more important things to do—supplying Hindenburg with the means of victory."
RUSSIA'S INDUSTRIAL MOBILIZATION
In Russia industrial mobilization was badly managed. Cattle were taken to the front in herds. Often driven on foot, they were slaughtered on the spot where the meat was needed for the soldiers. The hides were thrown aside to rot. As a result of this wasting of hides, the supply of leather for military uses and for shoes for both the Army and the civilian population was soon utterly inadequate. Horses were requisitioned in the most unintelligent way, the result being that agricultural production decreased and with the lack of transportation facilities the Army horses could not be supplied with food. They died by the tens of thousands.
Gross mismanagement marked the war handling of the Russian railway system. The rolling stock was allowed to deteriorate. Locomotives and cars were put aside permanently when they needed slight repairs. They could not be repaired because the railway machine shops had been converted into munition factories. There was an appalling shortage of manufactured goods for the civilian population, because the entire output of many manufacturing concerns was taken over for the Army. It was almost impossible to get clothing, boots and articles of wearing apparel. So great was the dearth of cloth at the end of the third year of the war that one was struck by the contrast beween between the lines in front of the bakeries formed in the early morning hours and the groups of women gathered at eight in the evening before the shops which sold cloth to stand all through the night in line for the opening of the shop in the morning.
A bright spot in Russian war administration was the work of the Municipal and Provincial Councils. The members of these bodies did valiant service in preventing the growing disorganization of the economic life of their country. Their activities are described by Prof. Harper of Chicago University, an actual eye witness of Russian conditions during the war, in the following passage:
"So these organizations entered upon a campaign of 'saving' and 'production.' They saved the hides that were being thrown away, collected the discarded boots at the front and repaired them, and took over the task of supplying the underwear for the whole army—mobilizing the village coöperative societies to fill the large orders. And they did much to organize the refugees from the invaded districts for productive work. In a word, these men saw that the war was going to extend into years, and they realized that only foresight and organization of productive resources would make it possible for Russia to withstand economically the burdens of a protracted struggle.