January 16, 1915, 
LAND AND WATER 
had emancipated that cradle of the Prussian power 
from vassalage to the crown of Poland. The pro- 
vince in all save its southern belt (which is Polish) 
is the very essence of Prussian society : a mass of 
serfs, technically free, economically abject, gov- 
erned by those squires who own them, their goods, 
and what might be their soil. The Russians 
wasted East Prussia in their first invasion, and 
they did well, though they paid so heavy a price ; 
for to wound East Prussia was to wound the very 
soul of that which now governs the German Em- 
pire. When the landed proprietors fled before 
the Russian invasion, and v/hen there fled with 
them the townsfolk, the serfs rose and looted the 
country houses. Prussia dares not 'see that hap- 
pen again. In a way quite different from Bel- 
gium, quite different from Alsace-Lorraine, East 
Prussia is essential. Its abandonment means 
ruin. Forces will be preserved to defend it, how- 
ever urgently they may be needed elsewhere, as 
the pressure upon Germany increases. The Ger- 
man commanders, if they forget East Prussia for 
a moment in the consideration of the other essen- 
tial points will, the moment their ej^es are turned 
upon East Prussia, again remember with violent 
emotion all that the province means to the reign- 
ing dynasty and its supporters, and they will do 
anything rather than let that frontier go. The 
memory of the first invasion is too acute ; the terror 
of its repetition too poignant to permit its aban- 
donment. 
(4) Silesia. — Silesia, for quite other reasons 
(and remember that these different reasons for de- 
fending such various points are the essence of the 
embarrassment in which German strategy will 
find itself), must be saved. It has been insisted 
over and over again in these notes what Silesia 
means. Its meaning is twofold. If Silesia goes, 
the safest, the most remote from the sea, the most 
independent of imports of the German industrial 
regions is gone. Silesia is, again, the country of 
the great proprietors. Amuse yourselves by re- 
membering the names of Pless and of Lichnowsky. 
There are dozens of others. But, most important 
of all, Silesia is what Belgium is not, what Alsace- 
Lorraine is not, what East Prussia is not, it is 
the strategic key. Who holds Silesia commands 
the twin divergent roads to Berlin northwards, to 
Vienna southwards. Who holds Silesia holds the 
Moravian Gate. Who holds Silesia turns the line 
of the Oder and passes behind the barrier for- 
tresses which Germany has built upon her eastern 
front. Who holds Silesia strikes his wedge in be- 
tween the German-speaking north and the Ger- 
man-speaking south, and joins hands with the 
Slavs of Bohemia ; not that we should exaggerate 
the Slav factor, for religion and centuries of vary- 
ing culture disturb its unity. But it is something. 
Now, the Russian forces are Slav ; the resurrection 
of Poland has been promised ; the Czechs are not 
submissive to the German claim of natural mas- 
tery, and whoever holds Silesia throws a bridge 
between Slav and Slav if his aims are an extension 
of power in that race. For a hundred reasons 
Silesia must be saved. 
Now, put yourself in the position of the men 
who must make a decision between these four out- 
liers — ^Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, East Prussia 
and Silesia, and understand the hesitation such 
divergent aims impose upon them. Hardly are 
they prepared to sacrifice one of the four when the 
defensive problem becomes acute, but its claims 
will be pressed in every conceivable manner : by 
public sentiment, by economic considerations, by 
mere strategy, by a political tradition, by the in- 
fluence of men powerful with the Prussian Mon- 
archy, whose homes and wealth are threatened. 
"If I am to hold Belgium I must give up Alsace. 
How dare I do that? To save Silesia I must ex- 
pose East Prussia. How dare I? I am at bay 
and the East must at all costs be saved. I will 
hold Prussia and Silesia— but to withdraw from 
Belgium and from beyond the Rhine is defeat." 
The whole thing is an embroglio. That conclu- 
sion is necessary and inexorable. It does not ap- 
pear at all until numerical weakness imposes a 
gradual concentration of the defensive, but once 
that numerical weakness has come, the fatal 
choices must be made. It may be that a strict, 
silent and virile resolution such as saved France 
this summer, a preparedness for particular sacri- 
fices calculated beforehand, will determine first 
some one retirement and then another. It may 
be— though it is not in the modem Prussian tem- 
perament—that a defensive as prolonged as pos- 
sible will be attempted, and that, as circumstances 
may dictate, Alsace-Lorraine or Belgium, Silesia 
or East Prussia, will be the first to be deliberately 
sacrificed; but one must be, and, it would seem, 
another after, and in the difficulty of choice a 
wound to the Germany strategy will come. 
The four corners are differently defensible. 
Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium only by artifice and 
mth great numbers of men ; Silesia only so long as 
Austria {and Hungary) stand firm. East Prussia 
has her natural arrangement of lakes to make in- 
vasion tedious and to permit defence with small 
numbers. 
Between the two groups, eastern and western, 
IS all the space of Germany— the space separating 
Aberdeen from London. Between each part of 
each pair, in spite of an excellent railway system, 
is the block in the one case of the Ardennes and 
the Eiffel, in the other of empty ill-communicated 
Poland. But each is strategically a separate 
thing. The political value of each is a separate 
thing, the embarrassment between all four in- 
superable. 
The current number of the Asiatic Iteriew contains a mass of 
• ?K w""'"®'"71^'' "K"^ *° "•« pa""* O""- I"dian Allies are playinir 
in the War melmling an article on "The Indian Troops in France* 
by E. Charles Vivian, and "India's Rally Round the ma.^,- b. 
A. Ynsuf Ah. Another exceptionally interesting article on the fall of 
Ising-rao is contributed by Shinii Ishii, a Japanese writer who deaU 
with hu subject from the inside. While topical in many of its features, 
the ito'ttfK- maintains its literary character, and in this connection its 
literary supplement forms a well-compiled critique of the leailinff 
publications of the day. * 
,c ^^ ^^ Kaiser's War., published in handy half-crown form by 
Messrs George Allen and Unwin, Mr. Austin Harrison holds to the 
view that if five years ago we had seen through the German purpose 
and ^answered it with conscription, this war would not have broken 
out. In addrtion to thie, he separates G«rmany from Kaiserism to a 
certain extent, and— a dangerous attitude at the present time- 
admits to admiration of " numbers of German things which I do not 
find in this country," including " a factual honesty of thought •' 
Thus the preface; but, having read more than the preface, 
we find in the book a fearless criticism of many things 
which we might do batter, and not least among them 
the treatment of soldiers' wives and dependents. The book is lucid, 
as Its author's work usually is, and is a stimulating work, well worth 
reading. 
Messrs. J. Arrowsmith have just published The Third Great War, 
by Laurie Magnus, a shilling book designed to prove that the history 
of militarism did not start with Rernhardi and Ih.is school, but was 
combated by both Marlborough and Wellington. The book contaiaj a 
mass of historical fact in support of its author's argument, which ia 
well thrust home in view of the limits of such a work. 
15* 
