October 31, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
KOTE.- 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
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THE FIELD IN FLANDERS. 
Tuesday/ afternoon, October 21t/i, 1914. 
I WISH this week to concentrate upon that 
large business — largest as it serves the Allies 
though large it serves the enemy — which 
is acting in Flanders as I write. 
Perpetually in the course of this great 
campaign, and especially during its course in the 
West, we have had a situation which looked like a 
decision ; and yet that situation has not matured. 
We have had movements that not only might 
have resulted in very definite success to one side or 
the other, but which seemed necessaiily to point to 
such immediate results. 
I do not mean that we have had situations 
which could make one certain of victory or defeat 
for one party ; I mean that we have had situations 
which promised as allernatives some considerable 
success on one side or the other — just as you may 
say of a big speculation that either the man will 
make a fortune or will lose one. Fx-ora what you 
know of the state of the mai'ket he wiU be made or 
broken. But at any l^te he wiU not come out with 
a sninll loss or gain. 
Now the principal characteristic of the campaign 
up to the present moment — that which seems to 
differentiate it from every other great campaign 
of the past, and a characteristic probably pro- 
ceeding from the wholly novel conditions of modem 
wiiveisal conscript armies and modei-n machines — is 
that these critical situations have never developed 
beyond a certain limit. They have never matured. 
They have never led to a decision. 
Upon the analogy of the immediate past of the 
war it would therefore be unwise to say that the 
present situation in Flanders points to an approaching 
decision. Nevertheless one is tempted to say that, 
what with (1) the violence of the struggle, (2) the 
large reinforcements involved (especially upon the 
German side), (3) the concentration of all main 
interest on to this one point — the state of affairs does 
look more like a decision than anything we have had 
before. 
It does look as though a continuation of stalemate 
on this end of the Franco-Belgian frontier was 
hardly possible. There is no doubt that the enemy 
lias here concentrated new forces which, though they 
certainly do not exhaust his reserves, prove him to 
be making a gambling effort. Prisoners are captured, 
troops ai'e noted upon the march, which make this 
coi-tain. He has masses of first-rate material in 
Flanders. But he is, among other better troops, 
using boys much younger and men much older than 
the Allies choose to put into the field at this stage ; 
and the whole of his action during the last ten days, 
both in the northern part, the neighbourhood of the 
sea-coast, and in tlie southern between Lille and 
La Bassee, proves that he is depending upon superior 
numhcra in this region acquired at some expense of 
quality. He is, therefore, lighting, not in expectation 
of falling back on a defensive position, but to win 
or lose. 
« Bruges 
o 
tT7xorout 
Dixmtbfe 
%®RDuiIers 
» 
Ypras / 
Armeatieres ,o- — ^ 
r f? ' */ •Lille 
La Dossee* 
lo 
20 30 
Miles 
40 /(? 
We may make perfectly certain that, both across 
the canal between Ypres and the sea and in the region 
of La Bassee west of Lille, far to the south, where the 
enemy is making his greatest efforts, he has for the 
moment got a numerical superiority, and we may 
make equally certain that he has acquired that 
superiority at a quite extraoi-dinarily heavy expense of 
men. Only the event can show whether he is wise or 
unwise in making this extraoi-dlnary effort, but, at any 
rate, if he proves unwise (that is, if the effort fails) he 
cannot, after it has failed, fall hack xcith the same 
seciiriti/ tcilh which the first-class troops of Kluck fell 
hack in their admirable retreat from Paris. 
Now let us estimate the elements which may 
lead us to expect in this field success or failure upon 
either side. 
The first of these elements is one which I have 
insisted upon before now in connection with this 
fighting, and which is particulai-ly evident in the crisis 
of the last few days. It is the separation of objectives 
which, I do not say the German commanders, but 
certainly the German Government, has imposed upon 
the German forces. Someone, clearly, has presented 
an advance along the coast from Ostend towards 
Calais as owe of the objects to be obtained by the 
German army. As clearly some other person has 
proposed another effort (and very vigorously maintained 
it) south and west of the town of Lille. The two 
may be co-ordinated by some agreement ; they do 
not come from one head. 
Now .see what this duplication of objective means. 
From the little town of La Bassee to the sea at 
Nicuport (which line is the general frontier of the 
