which these men have to use.

The third essential element, equipment, we need not separately
consider, because, when one says "men" in talking of military affairs,
one only means equipped, trained, and organized men, for no others can
be usefully present in the field.

Let us start, then, with some estimate of the number of men who are
about to take part in battle; let us take for our limits the
convenient limits of a year, and let us divide that space of time
arbitrarily into three parts or periods.

There was a first period in which the nations opposed brought into the
field the men available in the first few weeks for immediate action.
It is not possible to set a precise limit, and to say, "This period
covers the first six" or "the first eight weeks;" but we can say
roughly that, when we are speaking of this first period, we mean the
time during which men for whom the equipment was all ready, whose
progress and munitioning had all been organized, were being as rapidly
as possible brought into play. Such an estimate is not equivalent to
an estimate of the very first numbers that met in the shock of battle;
those numbers were far smaller, and differed according to the rate of
mobilization and the intention of the various parties. The estimate is
only that of the total number which the various parties could, and
therefore did, bring into play before men not hitherto trained as
soldiers, or trained but not believed to be required in the course of
the campaign--according as that campaign had been variously foreseen
by various governments--came in to swell the figures.

The conclusion of this first period would come, of course, gradually