The Spectator at war: Men, men, men

From The Spectator, 31 October 1914:

The Germans are doing rapidly and effectively what we ought to be doing, and what we must do if we are to win. They are raising new armies and training the remaining portion of their adult male population to arms. When the war began we all thought that about four million German fighting men was the most we need reckon with. These men have already been put into the firing line in the two theatres of the war, and now Germany is turning to that part of her adult male population—another four millions—who have not yet been trained, or else were trained so long ago that they hardly count as trained men. These four million men—we speak in very round numbers—are not first- class “cannon fodder,” to use the hideous and brutal German phrase, but the Germans with their splendid organization will soon make them into troops which, backed by the masses of machine guns and artillery which Germany possesses, are capable of taking the field and coming on in that black incessant stream which is the piece de resistance of German field tactics.