January 16, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
THE WAR BY LAND. 
By HILAIRE BELLOC. 
HCTB.-Thl. Article bii been inbmltted t« the Preii Biirea», which doei not object to the pobllcatlon »• eeaiored and tatci no 
reipoailbiltty for the correetaeii of the itatemeBte. 
In accordance with the reqolrementi of tho Preii Bnrean, the peiitloai of troop> on Plasi illuttratlaf thU Article antt only bo 
regarded ai approximate, and no definite itrenrtb at any point li Indicated. 
A NOTE ON THE NATURE OF A 
BLOCKADE. 
I THINK it has been pointed out in these com- 
ments that the essentials of a siege are that 
the operations of the besieged force are confined 
to a restricted area by the action of the 
hesieging forces ; so that it is the object of the 
besieged to force their way out and of the besiegers 
both to prevent the besieged from forcing their way 
out, and gradually to contract the area within which 
the besieged are restricted in their operation. 
Subject to this definition, the present phase of 
the war may be accurately described as the siege 
upon an enormous scale of the Germanic powers. 
A condition commonly but not necessarily 
accompanying a siege is that called the blockade. 
The essential of a blockade is that you prevent the 
means of livelihood from reaching the besieged, 
and also, of course, but as a secondary matter, 
the opportunity through munitions of continuing 
their resistance in arms. 
You may have a siege without a blockade, as 
when an armed force is so restricted that it 
cannot break out and yet still possesses avenues 
of supply, or is permitted some forms of supply 
for political, religious, or other reasons by the 
besiegers. But you could hardly have a blockade 
without a siege, because no armed force would 
permit itself to be starved if it were able to cut 
its way out. 
Now the present siege of the Germanics is 
remarkable for the fact that it a true siege accom- 
panied by a very imperfect blockade. The German 
and Austrian armies have tried very hard indeed to 
force their way out through the lines that contain 
them in France and Belgium and Alsace, to master 
Servia and get away out in that fashion, to break 
through the Russian lines in the East. They have 
hitherto failed in all these attempts. But in the 
blockade which should accompany such measures 
the besiegers have shown no consistent military 
policy. 
I do not say that the besiegers have not shown 
a consistent moral or political policy : I only say 
that they have shown no consistent military policy. 
If you desire to reduce your enemy by blockade 
you prevent his getting anything whatsoever of 
which he stands in need. The Romans in front of 
Jerusalem, for instance, or the Germans in front of 
Paris in 1870, did not say, "We will prevent arms 
getting through but we will allow food," or, " We 
will prevent the food for soldiers going in, but we 
will allow food for civilians." If they had adopted 
such a policy they might just as well not have had 
a blockade at all. 
If the German Empire had the luck to cripple 
the British fleet and its lesser allies, it would 
establish a blockade with these islands. It would 
not allow cotton to go through and thus keep 
Lancashire in employment, while forbidding rubber 
to go through, or copper, because these two articles 
were supposed to be of special military value. It 
would allow nothing to go through, for its aim 
would be the reduction of the blockaded party. 
Now the blockade of Germany and Austria- 
Hungary cannot be absolute because hundreds of 
miles of frontier everywhere march with neutral 
powers, and the native products at least of those 
neutral Powers can reach the enemy at will'. It 
may not even be possible to prevent a certain 
leakage from without through the agency of 
private individuals living in neutral territory who 
buy ostensibly for neutral purposes but secretly 
sell again to the enemy. 
But there is a broad distinction between pre- 
venting all you possibly can from getting in and 
deliberately allowing whole categories of goods to 
come in, and even failing to do your best to prevent 
the entry of such categories as you have selected 
for contraband. 
If you do not prevent everything you possibly 
can prevent from going into the blockaded area, 
then your blockade is imperfect and will almost 
certa,inly fail. You may have excellent moral, 
religious or political reasons for thus running the 
risk of losing the war ; but you can have no military 
reason. As a military operation, to allow cotton, 
let us say, to go into Germany, and to forbid copper, 
is meaningless. What you are fighting is the whole 
nation with all its resources, economic and social, 
and inasmuch as you allow those resources to be fed, 
by so much do you increase the chances of the 
enemy's winning and of your losing, and by so much 
do you kill and wound your own soldiers, deplete 
your own wealth and prolong the duration of 
hostilities. 
It is a matter upon which there can be no two 
opinions, and one upon which it is singular enough 
that there should be any confusion of thought. 
Especially is a blockade imperfect when it 
allows matter which the blockaded country cannot 
get at all, save from outside, to go through, and yet 
sticks at matter which the blockaded country can, 
to some extent, find for itself. When, for instance, 
it allows cotton to go through and wastes energy 
upon preventing copper going through ; or when it 
allows cocoa to go through and is anxious to prevent 
nitrates. 
There are four causes, and four only, which may 
operate upon the government of the blockading 
nation to make the blockade of its enemy imperfect : 
(1) Religion : as when it would be thought 
impious to prevent certain sacred objects, or certain 
men in discharge of a sacred office, from passing 
through the blockading lines. This objection is 
absolute, but it has to-day, I believe, little weight. 
