Reverses and Reserves

For Germany's armies, hard-pressed but far from destroyed in the east, the supreme test will come with invasion from the west. Their ability to meet that test must depend, in the last analysis, upon the number and quality of their reserves.

Through a Dark Glass. A true reserve, as Karl von Clausewitz said, is "a force ready for unforeseen events." By this classic definition, Germany literally has no reserves -- so far as her enemies can find out. Every known part of the German forces is either engaged on present fronts or earmarked to meet invasion at foreseen points. In terms of these visible forces, Germany is like a man who has put aside just enough money to pay his next month's rent: he has no real surplus.

The catch is that the Allies cannot be sure that they have complete information about Germany's forces (at least 300 well-trained, well-equipped, well-led divisions of German troops, perhaps 100 "satellite" divisions of variable quality and fighting spirit). Allied staffmen, planning invasion, must assume that an unknown number of "hidden reserves" is available to Field Marshal Erwin ("The Fox") Rommel, recently appointed to direct the overall defenses of Europe, and to Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, apparently still commander in the threatened west.

The Allies' great hope is that this cautious assumption may turn out to be unfounded -- that the Wehrmacht is in deed as short of reserves as it seems to be.

If so, the pattern of last week's events in Italy, where the Fifth Army found almost no Germans at apparently unforeseen points near Rome, may be repeated at other places on German Europe's fringe.

Lost Reserves. In the summer of 1943 Germany had a real reserve. Some 25 unassigned Nazi divisions in south Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia were ready to be moved to any theater, for any task. But after Mussolini's fall they were dispatched to Italy and the Balkans. In the autumn a part of this force (probably five armored divisions) was rushed to the Ukraine. Of the remaining 20 divisions, about ten are fighting in Yugoslavia and southern Italy. The other ten are in northern Italy (or were until Rome was threatened last week).

Until recently Colonel General von Kleist held back ten armored divisions, probably in the Minsk-Brest-Litovsk area; by now he has probably had to throw them against the Russian avalanche. In France, in addition to the 30-odd coastal-defense divisions, twelve divisions stand in the rear, supposedly between Amiens and Sedan, waiting to counterattack Allied forces landing in the west. These forces are formidable but they are not true reserves: they cannot be readily spared for duty elsewhere.

New Reserves? The German Command is frantically trying to build up a new, real reserve. Lack of time, lack of manpower hamper this effort. Adolf Hitler confessed in his New Year message that he had to deprive his Russian front of reinforcements and send them to other "positions that are absolutely essential for the defense of Europe."

Germany's intensified curtailment of nonessential production, the drafting of women, boys, foreign labor for German factories, the Army's continued inroads on the remaining male labor force--all these and many other facts testify to a growing shortage of manpower. That shortage has yet to be translated into extreme need on the fronts. Some German prisoners recently taken have been middleaged, beaten in body and spirit. But many more are still up to Germany's best--young, well-equipped specimens like those now being captured in Italy (see cut).

Today Germany can call up no more than 400,000 to 600,000 draft-age youngsters each year (Russia can call up at least 1,500,000 annually). A well-informed officer of the Czech Intelligence Service recently estimated that the Germans suffered 2,500,000 casualties in 1943. Certainly the Wehrmacht''s losses even before western invasion run far ahead of its maximum replacements. Thus the end fact is that Germany must meet invasion with troops already in hand.

Substitutes for Reserves? Hitler obviously hopes that concrete and firepower will do the work of men he cannot afford. The Germans claim to have placed rocket guns, 7,700 field guns, 3,000 antitank guns, an abundance of land and sea mines along the invasion coasts. Behind these outer defenses, Nazi-dominated Europe bristles with fortifications built by the untiring Organisation Todt, Hitler's huge construction enterprise.

Germany's productive capacity is still enormous, and much of its output is designed to restore the effectiveness of depleted units by increasing the firepower of each man. Strategically immobile, in the sense that they are earmarked for specified areas, the defensive forces in western and southern Europe nevertheless have high local mobility--within their areas, they can be moved rapidly and effectively to any threatened point.

Lost Sword. Yet the shortage of visible reserves remains. Field Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb, considered by some the Nazi Army's best brain, wrote in 1937: "In its final analysis, the success of defense as well as of break-through operations depends on which side can maintain fresh reserves." Without adequate reserves, the Germans cannot hope to turn from the defensive to the offensive--their one chance to win. Without reserves, they can never fulfill the precept of their old master, Clausewitz: "Swift and powerful transition to the offensive--the lightning sword of retribution--that is the most brilliant part of the defense."

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