Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-23 | Page 6 | Absurd Reckoning

ABSURD RECKONING. It was a favorite method of computation compu-tation among the German military folk last fall to figure how many yards the British and French had advanced in a week and then to deduce that at the rate of advance the allies would reach Germany in something more than a hundred hun-dred years.. In the last ten days the British and French have advanced in some sectors more than twenty-five miles and at that rate would reach Germany, after traversing northern France and Belgium, Bel-gium, in about sixty days. Both methods of computation are absurd, ab-surd, but the German war officials clung to the method with a fondness which made it perfectly plain that they were simply trying to maintain the spirit of the German people. The French and English have arrived at the new line of German defense after taking about 900 square miles of terri-torv. terri-torv. More than 350 towns have been liberated and reincorporated under French rule. It is impossible to estimate esti-mate the population recovered to France, inasmuch as the Germans have carried off into captivity all the French capable of rendering military service. The recovered land will afford many fertile acres for intensive cultivation, but the agriculturists will no, handicapped handi-capped by lack of implements, for no doubt the Teuton invaders stripped tho region clean of all implements which would help the farmers to raise much-needed much-needed crops for France.