that all the living things within so many yards are, in a flash, set
rigid in position as though manufactured for Jarley's Wax Works, the
officer standing in position with uplifted arm, yet dead, the soldier
by the window with a cigar in his fingers, a smile on his face, stone
dead.

I was informed that the effectiveness of this shell was not due to its
poisonous gases but to the fact that, instead of being filled with
bullets, it was charged with a wonderful new explosive.

For the development of the science of war twelve months in the line of
battle is worth in new inventions ten years of peaceful military study.
A three years' warfare for which the English are planning is likely to
put Germany's thirty years of "peaceful" war preparation quite in the
shade, so far as practical results are concerned.

I hear of new and more powerful mortars and cannon, wonderful new
rifles, now being manufactured by the million from secret plans, and
new guns to bring down Zeppelins, that it is not useful to discuss here.

In the first six months of this war, the German casualties must be well
up toward 2,000,000. A million of the injured may go back to the
firing line.

But in killed, seriously wounded, missing, and prisoners, Germany must
be losing at the rate of 2,000,000 men a year, and the forces of
destruction against her will increase rather than diminish. That she
can lose at this rate for three years and have anything left worth
consideration as a military power is beyond reason.