But the Italian tradition demands a great 
deal more than that. It demands with a nattiral 
appetite the permanent establishment of Italy as 
a great Power. It is important for the Italians, 
if the unity and cohesion of their State and 
the permanence of its influence are to be 
secure, that they should enter the councils of 
Europe upon an equal footing with nations poli- 
tically older than their own. It was this feeling 
which gave rise to the enthusiasm — soon checked — 
for Colonial expansion, half a lifetime ago. It was 
this feeling which led to the attack on Turkey, the 
occupation of Tripoli, and the naval work in the 
'^gean quite recently. 
There is more than this. The Italians feel of 
the Adriatic that it should by right be an Italian 
sea, and, in the background, is that feeling which, 
whatever academically minded men in this country 
may say to the contrary, is present everywhere 
throughout civilisation : the feeling that a Ger- 
man, when he has the power to make war, is im- 
possible : the feeling that this war is, in spite of 
all the triteness of the phrase, really a war for 
civilisation against blunderers who are capable in 
their brutal simplicity of destroying civilisation. 
AU these things move Italy to intervene, and, 
incidentally, Italy has the very great asset of a 
Court which is national. Her monarchy, parlia- 
mentary and a compromise though it is, is at least 
not a German monarchy. Her Court is not an 
international Court. There is a great deal more 
in that than the conventions of our modern politi- 
cal caution are disposed to allow. 
If Italy comes in she would bring up for the 
first great actions (supposing the enemy to accept 
her challenge) about a million men. This force 
would be properly gunned and would have behind 
it munitions upon a larger scale than any corre- 
sponding number of any other Power in the field. 
It would be new to modern war and therefore un- 
tried. Possibly, or probably, it would meet in the 
first actions with local unexpected reverses, but it 
would be so much more numerous than anything 
that could be brought against it, it could so rapidly 
acquire the lesson of aU this new fighting, and it 
would be of such importance — once the conflict was 
joined — to make good that the move could not but 
change to our advantage, and that almost immedi- 
ately, the whole character of the war. It may be 
safely prophesied the military spirit would spring 
suddenly in Italy to an unexpected height. The 
nation has desired for very long something that 
it lacked, not only native territory but a military, 
name, and the trial once undertaken that appetite 
would become very vivid indeed. Anyone doubt- 
ing that is ignorant of the Latin temper. It is a 
spirit not prompt to war, yet nourished by war. 
Italy thus intervening would probably, 
though not certainly, determine the intervention of 
Roumania, and there would come upon the Austro- 
Hungarian forces a pressure too strong to be borna 
Would there be a corresponding increase of 
tension upon the Western line of the enemy, so 
that he would be compelled to shorten that line : 
in other words, to evacuate Northern France and 
most of Belgium before the English and the French 
deliver their blow ? 
It is to be doubted. Austria would bleed 
first. The German Empire would lend her against 
this new perU no more forces than it has already 
lent, for there are no more to lend. 
But after the intervention of Italy has pro- 
duced its full effect, after the Austrian Empire hag 
begun to weaken its defence and that defence to 
" crack " at any one vital point upon the ring, 
then with the advance of no matter what enemy 
force into the interior of Hungary or the Slav 
provinces of the South-East, the German position 
would be logically desperate. The time remain- 
ing would be appreciable, but short, and a blow in 
the West, even a breaking of the containing line 
there, would no longer be able to save the German 
Empire from complete defeat. Its commanders 
woiJd shorten their line. 
THE WAR BY WATER. 
THE GREAT LANDING, 
By A. H. POLLEN. 
KOTE. — Tbis article has been robmitted to the Press Boreaa, n-hich does not object to the pablication as censored, and takes no 
responsibility lor the correctness ot the statements. 
IT will probably be found, when the full details 
of the great landing on the GallipoH Penin- 
sula are published, that the most remarkable 
combined naval and military operation ever 
carried out in face of strong opposition has been 
accomplished. The official account, no doubt, tells 
us aU the facts which are strictly material to our 
having a fair grasp of the situation on April 29. 
But it is pardonable to say that the more we know 
of the success that attended them, the more we wish 
to know of the methods by which that success was 
attained. The difficulties in disembarking troops 
on a shore which is well defended are, of course, so 
great as to be almost insuperable, and until the 
landing force is not only on the beach, but has been 
able to establish itself in tenable positions and in 
fighting formation, the entire conduct of the opera- 
tions is under the naval command. I believe that I 
am right in saying that, technically, every man in 
a boat is under the naval officer in charge, and, even 
when disembarked, under command of the naval 
" officer of the beach " until paraded under his own 
officers, when authority over him passes from naval 
into military hands. The task put upon the 
admiral commanding and his officers is, therefore, 
a stupendous one. Where there is no port, no 
wharves, and no piers, the mere transport of the 
men from ships to the land and then their disem- 
barkation constitute a vastly complicated affair. 
Everything that can float and can carry men 
or stores must be requisitioned, not only from 
every transport, but from every man-of-war. This 
numerous and variegated fleet, divided up into 
separate flotillas, each told off to its special unit, 
U* 
