July 3, 1915. 
LAND A N D W A T E R 
so Ion" as it is held the enemy's task is unachieved. 
Such are the detailed conditions of the 
Russian retirement through Galicia, and of its 
present phase. But the exaggerated doubts 
through which public opinion has passed since the 
Russian retirement began, merit, in conclusion, a 
rather more general presentation of the policy 
upon the Eastern front, and, with my readers' 
leave, I will end by stating the matter as a whole 
and weighing, as far as I can, the effect of this 
prolonged Russian retreat upon the campaign in 
general. 
GENERAL SUMMARY. 
We must begin by the very widest first prin- 
ciples : 
The great war consists in the mutual attempt 
of the Prussians, with their dependents and asso- 
ciates, on the one hand, of the Allies upon the 
other, to impose each his V/ill upon the opponent. 
Now, the Prussian Will demands control over 
some one or more principal ports upon the Narrow 
Seas, preferably, perhaps, Antwerp, and passage 
through the Scheldt, and hegemony over all that 
can be controlled by them among the Slavonic 
peoples, as Poland, the Balkan States, and, of 
course, the Croats and Slavonians of the South, 
the Czechs of the North, long included in the 
sphere of Germanic control. This enemy Will 
further demands the control of great portions of 
the tropics and the sub-tropics, which can only 
be acquired at the expense of France, Great 
Britain, and Holland, and, further, certain states 
of South America. This Will further demands, as 
a corollary to the control of the lesser Slavonic 
nations, the reduction of the Russian Empire to a 
condition of respectful alliance, or of still more 
respectful hesitation to claim leadership in the 
East of Europe and over its fellows by race. 
It further demands the reduction of Britisli 
sea-power to no more than an equality with 
various rivals and, of course, and finally, the 
liquidation of that French national bankruptcy 
which is a fixed dogma in the modern German 
mind. 
Such is the Will of the enemy. 
Upon the other side, the Will of the Allies 
demands in full the prevention of Prussia ever in 
the future menacing the common life of Europe 
by fraud, by secret attack, or by mere weight 
of numbers. 
The Allies further demand the opening of the 
Dardanelles to the advantage of one of their 
number ; the control of everything upon this side 
of the Rhine to the advantage of another of their 
number; the control of the Adriatic and of every- 
thing upon this side of the Alpine watershed to 
yet another of their number; and tiie permanent 
security for food and for material through 
supremacy at sea for yet another of their number. 
Lastly, they demand the restoration of its 
ancient boundaries to France, the evacuation and 
the restoration of a free Belgium, the continua- 
tion intact of the Dutch commonwealth (now a 
kingdom), some enlargement of the Italian boun- 
daries, and the liberation of the various Slavonic 
peoples other than the Serbian hitherto iniqui- 
tously subject to alien rule. 
Such, put, I think, fairly, is a contrast 
between the two Wills. 
In all wars there are but two methods by 
which the Will of one party is imposed in some 
degree upon the other. The first and primary 
method is the disarming of the opponent. 
Tlie second or subsidiarv' method is to disturb 
the political cohesion of your opponent. 
The first and more important of these great 
tasks — which when a whole nation is strictly 
united is the only task — is studied upon purely 
military grounds. It concerns itself only with 
tactical and strategic problems. But the second 
must not be neglected or despised. It is always 
of weight and is inextricably intermingled with 
the purely military factors of numbers, ground, 
communications, and weapons. 
For, when we say of such and such a nation 
in history that it failed in war, we nearly always 
mean not only that its commanders were unable 
to solve certain strategical or tactical problems, 
which their enemies were masters of, but also that 
their social organism failed to m.eet the strain, 
and that the Government, the commanders of the 
army, and general opinion were imperfectly 
co-ordinated. 
Now, it is the peculiar character of the pre- 
sent war that the issues involved so threaten the 
very life of every jtoxcer engaged as to diminish 
beyond the ordinary the second of the two great 
objects just defined. 
Political disarray, the shaking of public con- 
fidence, the misinterpretation by civilians of 
military events, friction between the executive 
Government and the commanders, are of more 
weight in proportion as the issue is less great. 
For instance, in the war of the Spanish Suc- 
cession of two hundred years ago it seemed, after 
Malplaquet, no use going on. Louis XIV. of 
France was allowed to retaih his grandson upon 
the throne of Spain. 
But in this campaign, on account of the very 
theory put forward by the enemy, no such com- 
promise is possible. The situation is not that of 
two boxers fighting for a purse. It is that of two 
men fighting for their lives with knives, muscles^ 
teeth, and nails, the one knowing that the other 
has engaged in the struggle with the object of 
murder; the other knowing that the destined 
victim will, if he is not killed, execute his would- 
be murderer. 
Expressions so strong may provoke ridicule 
from those who are unacquainted with the stand- 
point from which Prussia has worked towards 
this war, and the policy with which she in- 
augurated it. Strong as they are, they are not 
exaggerated. 
It is, indeed, true that Prussia, having failed 
in spite of the enormous numerical superiority of 
soldiers at her command for the inception of the 
campaign and of munitions and equipment im- 
mediately available, would very willingly admit 
a compromise to-day. It is, further, true that 
those peoples whom Prussia has involved in the 
adventure (and the Prussian tradition itself) are 
now so heavily struck that they would not propose 
— or, rather, could not — the immediate recurrence 
of a similar struggle. 
But not one of the Allies could ever feel 
secure in the future if the power to strike at any 
one of them singly remained in such hands. 
We sum up, then, and affirm that strategical 
considerations and military arguments must have 
more weight in this war than in any war fought 
for lesser objects. Mere political effect and mere 
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