The Spectator at war: Counting the cost

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 27 March 1915:

The controversy as to what should be our future military policy in the west still goes on, and calculations are made on the basis of the inquiry — If it cost us so many thousand men to advance two miles on a front of four, how many men will it cost the Allies to advance a hundred miles on a front of two hundred? No doubt the losses would be very heavy if we made such an advance, but we must point out that all these arithmetical calculations are quite valueless. If a general advance were ordered, the problem would change not merely in degree but in kind, and no calculations based upon the Neuve Chapelle figures would be of the alighted value for estimating the casualties. That does not, of course, prove that it would be wise to hurl ourselves on the German lines, nor does it alter the fact that a successful attack on entrenched positions always demands great superiority of numbers, and also is almost certain to be more costly to the assailants than to the defenders.