October 31, 1914 
LAND AND WATEB 
maintained in these columns before, and am particu- 
larly maintaining this week — that the Calais march is 
not well thought out : that the desire in undertaking 
it with such violence was rather to frighten than to 
hui-t. But the German rulers should hare remem- 
bered that we have arrived at a stage in the war in 
Avhich men calculate their risks closely and can not be 
distui'bed in their objects by any rhetoric or by 
any wandering desire or apprehension. It is to 
be hoped that there lias been some such vanity 
in expectation upon the German side. Such 
things have happened often to men disappointed of 
victory. 
(c) The next point is a little more doubtful, for 
national action m this country is not — even 
in wai'-time — subordinate to mditar}' neces- 
sities. It is rather dependent upon the 
orders of a few rich men. But I will make 
my point for what it is worth. 
Even supposing that the narrow seas were 
occupied upon the French shore by the enemy, the 
chances for and against invasion woidd still in a 
military sense depend, not upon what we did in this 
country, but upon what we did on the Continent. 
Though Encrland herself were threatened, the defence 
of England would still be centred — if mililary con- 
siderations alone had weight — in a vigorous effort to 
push back the enemy into Belgium and through 
Belgium into Genaoany. 
Now England would be physically able, if 
morally her head were kept, and the mere military 
problem alone were considered, to send reinforcements 
as casUy as ever ; even after the French shore M'ere 
in the enemy's hands. The very few more hours 
required to pass men across lower down the Channel 
would be the only strictly strategic disadvantage 
imposed on Great Britain and her Allies by a German 
occupation of Calais and the heights of Grisnez. 
It is true that submarines could come do^vn the coast 
and make of Calais or of Dunkirk a new base, but not 
a base appreciably advantageous over Ostend or the 
mouth of the Scheldt. The same watch which is kept 
for submarines in the Channel now could be kept 
then, and would, probably, be as successful then as, 
u]X)n the whole, it is now. 
But when I say that the true defence of 
Great Britain should the French coast near Calais 
be occupied is still the sending of reinforcements 
to France, that mvolves some consideration of the 
strategical problem from the Continental point of 
view. 
How docs tliis sea-coast march, the advance on 
Calais, look from the point of view of strategics upon 
the Continent ? 
From that point of view it is wholly imfavour- 
able to the Gei-mans, and that is why I do not believe 
that any soldier, imdeterred by civilian (or, as we caU 
them, political) considerations, ever proposed it. Note 
the disadvantages of tliis march as a militiiry move- 
ment, quite apart fi-om its supposed psychological 
effect upon the temper of the British and of their 
Government. 
(a) It is no way to outflank the French line. 
To be more accurate, you cannot outflank 
the French line, for it reposes upon the 
sea; and to waste masses of troops in 
merely pushing back the end of a line when 
you ought to be using tlicm to tear a hole 
somewhere in the line, is exactly like tiying 
to get rid of a young tree by bending 
back the top of it instead of cutting its 
stem. 
(5) The march is exposed ia its most essential 
line to fire fi-om the sea. It is not only 
harassed by that fire, it is subject to 
enormous losses by that fire ; and, what is 
still more important, the one great road — 
the coast road — by which it must move its 
heaviest transport (for there is no other) is 
particularly open to this form of attack. 
(c) The ground is abominable. It is a mass of 
small brackish watercourses, hedged fields, 
dykes, brick waUs. And the nearer you get 
to the coast the more you get treacherous 
sand as well. Further (and this is not to 
be despised), there is trouble about the supply 
of good water. 
{d) But more important by far than any other 
consideration is this : the maixh along the 
sea-coast is undertaken — every mile of it as 
it goes forward — with a greater and a 
greater perU to communications. 
Here I must, with the reader's leave, introduce 
yet another diagram dealing with this very familiar 
ground. You have upon the coast going from west 
to east the points Calais, Dunkirk, Nieuport, Ostend, 
representing a line of about fifty mUes ; and you have 
stretching down southward from Nieuport, also some 
fifty miles, the front which is marked upon this 
sketch by a shading to the east of it, which shading 
gives you roughly the territory now occupied by the 
German forces. 
Next, note that the whole weight of the German 
attack is centred upon two lines of advance — A, the 
line along the sea-coast, and B, the line (at least four 
or five days' march away) south of Lille. Further 
note that, as things have turned out, much the bigger 
effort is being made along A. Supposing the attack 
at A does succeed in getting as far as Calais, and that 
to their occupation of the hatched area the Germans 
add the dotted area. They wiU then (I am putting 
the matter purely hj'pothetically, for such a strategic 
position would in its ultimate form be impossible) 
have their communications — their columns of convoy 
and provisions, then* evacuation of woimded, and all 
the rest of it — along some such line as C — ^D, a line 
threatened along its whole flank. That, I say, is an 
impossible position. It is true that a very great force 
coming like this round the bulk of enemy forces to the 
south of it, coming north of the compact mass of the 
Allied troops who now are so far eastward as to be 
well beyond the line Ai-mentiercs — Yprcs, can in 
their turn threaten those Allied advanced positions 
and cause the troops in them to retire. But the 
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