Enough time has elapsed since the conquest of Poland for sufficient information to become available from which to form a reliable estimate of what Germany has gained in Poland. Exact figures of German losses have not been made public, for those which the Reich has issued are so grotesquely small as to be completely unbelievable, The estimate of the French General Staff may be taken as more closely approximating the truth, and according to their reckoning the German armies sustained 150,000 killed, or grievously wounded, in addition to 100,000 lightly wounded. They also lost 800 aeroplanes, 600 pilots, and 380 tanks. Such figures represent heavy losses, and themselves provide the reason why the German authorities have sought to minimize them. By the occupation of 48 per cent. of Poland, Germany obtained 80 per cent. of the whole of Polish industry, 35 per cent. of the whole of the harvest and but five per cent. of the Polish oil fields. The area occupied by Germany has been completely ruined and to restore it will require much time and the expenditure of considerable sums of money. The acquisition of such a large proportion of Polish industry by a nation which has a great industry of its own constitutes more of a burden than an asset. The mills, and factories are out of order, in some cases ruined, and their restoration, even if Germany needed it, would be a quesfion of months. The cotton mills would require considerable supplies of cotton to keep them busy. That, Germany does not possess, and is not likely to possess until the end of the war, while what supplies she still has are needed for the operation of her own mills, and those in the former Czechoslovak territory. Much the same' applies to the woollen industry in the Bielsko district. Here Germany is not and cannot be interested in reopening the mills as they cannot export the manufactured textiles, while the existing German mills are adequate for domestic consumption. It may safely be said, therefore, that so far as these particular industries are concerned they will probably lie idle for the time being.
The Polish iron, and steel industry in Silesia, Sosnowiec, and Teschen might be of great importance to Germany, because of their close proximity to coalfields, but Poland has no supply of iron ore of her own, and has had in the past to depend upon foreign ore, and that chiefly' from Sweden. Germany, not being at the moment in a position to increase her own supplies of ore, can only hope to depend upon supplies coming from Russia, but this will not be available for some time to come, and, when it is, will need to be paid for, and that probably in exchange in view of the German failure already to deliver heavy goods under existing arrangements with the Soviet. The position, therefore, is that, at any rate for the present, the value of the Polish iron industry to Germany is practically nil. Probably the biggest asset which Germany has.acquired consists of the rich coalfields in the districts mentioned above with the addition of Cracow. These were responsible for an annual output of 40,000,000 tons per annum. On this amount approximately 25 per cent. was exported to Scandinavia, western, and south-' eastern Europe, and a continuance of this trade would be of considerable value to Germany as providing at least some of the foreign exchange of which she stands in such urgent need. But it is reported that all the Polish mines are out of order requiring from four to six months before they can be restored to enable Germany to profit from them, while eyen then the shortage of German engineers, foremen and miners will militate against their being able to reach the normal production mark for a considerable time to come. The destruction of the Polish mines forces Poland's customers to look elsewhere for their coal supplies, and the only country which can export, and deliver to Sweden and Italy is Great Britain. An interesting bargaining point is thus placed in the hands of that nation, which Can make the supplies of coal to them dependent upon their agreement not to supply Germany with certain articles which they export to her, including the much-wanted iron ore, or at least to curtail their shipments. Thus the coalfields provide no opportunity of immediate profit to Germany, and at the present moment are more in the nature of a liability.
The German expectation of being able to lay hands on large quantities of corn and the products of the Polish oil-fields has not been realized. The surrender of the eastern portion of Poland to Soviet Russia, means that Germany has lost the granary of Poland. That portion which Germany has seized never had, even in times of peace, a surplus of grain, while all the agricultural districts which ordinarily do have, such as Volynia, East Little Poland and Vilna were taken by the Soviet. The latter also foiled the German desire to acquire the Polish oilfields, With the exception of a few old and exhausted wells in the neighbourhood of Jaslo and Krosno, the production of which scarcely amounts to five per cent. of the total output, Soviet Russia has control of Poland's wealth under this heading, the rich wells of Borislav and Drohobycz thus being diverted from German possession. It is clear from the foregoing that the immediate German gains, apart from an extension of her borders is small in the extreme, and even with the most intensive development will require years of work before there can be any adequate return for the great price Germany has paid for her conquest. Of immediate benefit there is little or nothing, and the contribution which a ruined and dismembered Poland can make to the German cause is most certainly out of all proportion to what Germany has lost and surrendered to Soviet Russia. As for the future an Allied victory will ensure that Germany shall not have the opportunity of developing these temporarily ruined resources. In this connection it will be remembered that Germany has been casting envious eyes on Yugoslavia and Rumania, and it is already suggested that an attempt Will be made to secure the resources of those two countries. If Germany attempts to obtain them by force the destruction of the Rumanian oil-fields, as in the last war, may be confidently expected, in which even all Germany would have to show for her venture would be a victory over those Balkan States quite as fruitless as that which she has obtained over Poland. The formation of a Balkan peace bloc may indeed put an end to German aspirations in that direction, but if it does not, all that remains to Germany is the chance of acquiring a few more choice specimens of Dead Sea fruit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.