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Show the conflict. Until June, 1941, when the Nazis invaded Russia, German losses were hardly felt. While losses in Russia are not known, the best estimate is that four million killed, captured and the Axis has lost not less than permanently disabled. Axis Has Superior Numbers . . . This does not mean that German army has been cut to pieces. In the first World War, Germany armed 13,000,000 men and there is no reason to believe that the Reich will not do as well in this struggle. Consequently, the Germans have around 8,000,000 soldiers available for service today. While the battle in Russia and in Africa has been developing favorably fav-orably to the cause of the United Nations, most military experts are of the opinion that the Axis can put into the field this spring about one hundred divisions more than we can. Only the steady flow of fighting men from the United States will FORWARD MARCH By n. S. Sims, Jr. i t i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i ' GERMAN I'OWER OF Ofl ENSIVE IS NOT PAST BUT WAR TOLL IS WEAKENING REICH The general outlook for the United Uni-ted Nations is good but we should not forget the warnings that have been issued by military leaders that the cost of victory will be high. It has been more than three years and a half since Germany marched into Poland to bring on Russians reinforced and reformed their armies to deliver slashing offensives against the Austrians and Germans. 1917, Russia dropped out of the first World War, leaving the other Allied nations to finish the struggle strug-gle against Germany. Despite the transfer of German soldiers to the Western Front, this was accomplished, accom-plished, but only after the Germans Ger-mans 'came within an inch of winning win-ning the war in the spring of 1918. The Present Situation . . . Since June, 1941, the Germans have been engaged in heavy fighting fight-ing in Russia but there has been no comparable second front to weigh down the fighting forces of the Axis. The aerial offensive that has been blasting away at German fpnfprq iq nnrlnnhtpdlv inflicting give the Allies numerical equality and this will not be the fact until later in the year. German Economy May Fail . . . While we have little confidence in the hope of a German collapse, when one means by the term the J refusal of Germans to fight,' there is the prospect that Germany's fighting strength will be worn to the exhaustion point by the end of this year. Such a result will only follow continued heavy fighting in Russia Rus-sia and the development of another anoth-er front in Europe which will compel' com-pel' Germany to exert her full strength. German losses in 1943 must be heavy if we expect to defeat de-feat the Axis during next year. If one goes back to the first World War, which lasted four years, three months and eleven days, there might be reason to believe be-lieve that the war-making ability of Germany, as to time, was about measured in that earlier struggle. This does not apply so much to the soldiers fighting in the field as to the internal economy that is necessary to support the operation of armies. There are, however, some differences between the conditions con-ditions of this war and that which ended in 1918. Some History of 1914-1918 ... Germany faced, from 1914 to 1917, a two-front war in Europe. During most of this period, German Ger-man armies were advancing Victoriously Vic-toriously and inflicting heavy losses loss-es upon their enemies. This was notably the case in the fighting against Russia, but, time and again, in the earlier struggle, the heavy losses to the Axis production produc-tion machine and this will, in time, exert a tremendous influence upon up-on the power of the Nazi armies to fight. While the German armies must be overwhelmed in the field, the air bombardment will hasten the day of collapse. Recent warfare in Russia indicates indi-cates that the Germans have been successful, since Stalingrad, in their withdrawal operations, and that the fighting is shifting gradually gradu-ally to the northern part of the line. Despite the loss of important import-ant strong points, the Nazis seem to be determined to retain footholds foot-holds for possible use as springboards spring-boards from which to launch an offensive when the summer campaign cam-paign begins. In Africa, the Britist First ana Eight armies, assisted by American Ameri-can forces, are gradually tightening tighten-ing the pressure upon the Germans in Tunisia and there is little reason reas-on to modify the earlier prediction that the expulsion of the Axis from Africa will be successfully accomplished. How long this will take and how heavy the price we must pay in casualties are the uncertainties. un-certainties. Australia Has "Invasion Jitters" . . . In the Far East, we continue to hear alarming news from Australia Austra-lia where there seems to exist something like the "invasion jitters." jit-ters." Every concentration of Japanese Jap-anese ships is viewed as an immediate imme-diate threat to the mainland. Even a comparatively small concentration concentra-tion of fourteen or fifteen vessels is described as an "armada." This type of news tends to confuse con-fuse the issues in the South Pacific Pa-cific where the length of the struggle strug-gle with Japan will depend largely upon what the American navy can do to the Japanese fleet. Of course, in referring to our navy, we include in-clude air forces as well as surface shipsr |