Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

8 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

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Newyddion
Dyfynnu
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The now denied intentio n of the War Office I, to break up the Welsh Yeomanry regiments to provide drafts for depleted elsh all- lt antrv units at the- front, puzzled the public, which cannot reconcile the shortage of men thus admitted with the millions d recruits obtained by the voluntary ostein inœ the war broke out. Three million men have been accepted in the United Kingdom, cr v.'?m over half a mi]L?on are casualties Apparently there should be an abundance of men at the disposal of the authorities, without resort to the expedient of hrelkig- up brigades which were in .existonce long before the war broke out. to replenish other bodies. The Under Secre- tary for War repeated on Wednesday that the wastage amongst the British infantry iva.41 no less than 15 per cent. per month. It is curious that Colonel Maude—who has an encyclopaedias knowledge of military matters, whatever we may think of him as a. prophet—has expressed Jus strong dis- belief that the figures can be anything like the total g iven. Hn considers it unpre- cedented, even in the case of the German Army; nor can it be reconciled with the clean medical sheet of the Army, and the excellence of its physical composition, whilst in clothing and feeding money is spent without stint to secure the best of everything. The whole problem of numbers ia one of I baffling perplexity. Thn public oaimot understand why units should waste away to skeletons when millions have enlisted, any more than it can understand why fine brigades which have been mobilised and training since August, 1914, have not been s.nt to the front, and are to be broken up and dispersed, when a great new army has been improvised from the raw material and placed on the battlefield aince then. Nor can it reconcile the extraordinary wastage reported officially amongst our troops with the known physical conditions and the absence of epidemics (except in Gallipoli) huch as wrought -such havoc in the South African War, whilst, as for losses in action there lia, been no important fighting for more than three months in the West. -k few facts may be given which will afford some guidance. Assuming we have in the field a force of axty divisions, or 1.201,000 men, another 1,200,000 would be required as a reserve to meet, a year's wast- age of 100 per cent. Add 110 that casual- ties, niftt in the Navy, men enlisted and discharged as medically unfit, and we have more than three million men accounted for: the fourth British million, and over half the Colonial contingent of some 860,000 have only been, authorised am! there are not "'T nir?MV thrm ilv •> million meu r .L.IJ. Ln. Ulg. ,& The actual lighting if done, by the infantry and tho gUild of the artil- j lery. The German system-the simplest aDd m'?t luminous- is to reckon an Army Coro,< i? terras of bayonets and guns—24,000 III lerrii-? of I)avjnet, gun,24,0(Y3 on a n?nn? fc?un?. Of the 20.000 men in a [ .i?.-i.? <?))y 12.0'j'J are infantry, and ]xt.y I divisi'j'i- would gin a net fi,,Iitilig force i )' i s i ')'t.? v.?u l  force cf? only 720,COO men, assuming that the divi- j siong are maintained at full strength, which j is rarely the case. Sir Edward Carson in- stanced three Territorial divisions, which i (,ndd mereh' muster 12,000. Assuming that w" have «ixty divisions in tlie field (a nuru1v! hypothetical aggregate, selected for the sake of exposition) we would probably have in the actual fighting line only 360,000; infantry at a time. the remaining 360.000 being the relief shift r<>L>ug in the. i-ear., A.ssu ning a division under war conditions musters 10,000 bayonet?;, which is probably nearer the a .:Ii I)H; total of three million men uMder arms find itself down in practice tn rifles in the actual firing. line-at. one time. | hen a .general attack nr-cle. a, large portion 1;) thr lilte has to be held defelj siviy. vuth Jocai reserves, and this detracts from the number of men available for the assault upon the selected length of t-he enemy's line. Part or the assaulting troops, again, are kept in reserve, and it may very- well happen that the actual proportion of the gross total of men enrolled who deliver .the decisive blow against the enemy at the chosen spot is less than 10 pvr (cut. Hf then- aggregate. Millions of men with the col- ours. ;,n the actual assault upon the enemy's iines, may very well resolve themselves In-tol a few score of thousands. There arc other a-inves than ours which mystify people as to where the millions to. The Russians have been the most conspicuous case in point. The popular id-ea at the commencement of the. war was that it. would take the Russians a couple of months to develop their full strength; nine months a fter the commencement of the war. we found their retreat being explained par- tially by a numerical inferiority in men, which was hardly credible when contrasted with early notions of the millions upon mil- lions that Russia. had ready to throw into the fi Id. It may be rioted that there is a, revival of these report# and the six or seven millions of Russna who were to have snowed the enemy under in the autumn of 1914 are now being promised for this spring. Jn these forecasts the elements of capacity to a.rm and equip is usuall y overlooked. If the Russian authorities have acted on the principle that it is better to have a moderate and manageable number of troops kept constantly at full strength, than huge nut uncontrollable masses. raw or ill-trained, Indifferently officered (the oflictr class is an abnormally small one in Russia), they will cmly be acting on sound principles justified by the experience of the Japanese War, where J-eserve Russian divisions, thrown suddenly into the shock of battle [like our pwn inexperienced men at, Suvit Hay), proved unequal to the strain. The e.t-reurn- Irtances of the war have thrown upon all the combatants the necessity of meeting a,gigan- tic expansion HI, numbers; but there is nrobably not a ar ( ffice, at London, Her- fn, or Pqtrogrid. which does not agree that here has been a consequent sacrifice of Quality to quantity ,dlJc.h it would 'have' Avoided if it possibly could have done so.

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