LAND AND .WATER, 
'July 24, 1915. 
operations, you would find more reliance upon 
political factors to save the situation than you 
would have found some months ago, and the poli- 
tical effort of Prussia at this moment is the mea- 
sure of her reliance upon the weariness or dis- 
union of the Allies. 
Take almost any newspaper you like pub- 
lished in German and you will find this eivihan 
confidence in an inconclusive peace taken for 
granted : and I mean here by an inconclusive 
peace a peace that would leave Germany in pos- 
session of, or at least directing, much that was not 
German before the war— most of Poland and cer- 
tainly the port of Antwerp. 
The most significant example of this confi- 
dence is to be found in the pathetic appeals of 
the international pacifists in Germany against 
the wickedness of annexation. Suppose these 
gentry in Frauce or in Great Britain were pro- 
testing against the annexation of German terri- 
tory actually in the occupation of the Allied 
ariuies, we can see that it would be the greatest 
possible proof of a universal confidence in victory. 
And so it is with Germany. So completely cer- 
tain is all public opinion in that country that the 
invaded districts can be retained at will that even 
opponents of annexation take its military possi- 
bility for granted. 
Thus the principal military critic on the Ber- 
lin Press, who usually writes soberly and with 
judgment, only goes so far as to say that he does 
not think the Allies can shift the German line in 
the West. 
A purely military judgment of the situation 
from the enemy's point of view w^e cannot obtain. 
One could only have it, as I have just suggested, 
if one could overhear the conversation of the Ger- 
man and Austrian higher command. But it must 
of its nature dift'er entirely from tlie general and 
quite erroneous public opinion which the German 
Government fosters and which a section of our 
own Press is permitted to reinforce. 
I have given over and over again the plain 
reasons for this distinction between instructed 
and uninstructed opinion in German)- and 
between the purely military chances of an incon- 
clusive peace as against the chances of obtaining 
such a peace by political effort. I will not weary 
the reader here with more than a recapitulation 
of the very simple military argument. It is this : 
The enemy numbers suffer from a certain 
wastage. This wastage proceeds at about five to 
six times the rate which can be repaired by re- 
cruitment. Meanwhile, the Allied forces also 
suffer from wastage, but from a w^astage less than 
the amount which can ultimately be repaired by 
recruitment — e.g., Russia has actually ready and 
trained, though not yet equipped, more men be- 
hind her fighting line than all the men she has 
lost. Great Britain has actually ready and 
trained in the West, though not yet fully 
equipped, more men than have been lost in every 
fashion to all the Western Allied forces during 
the whole war between Switzerland and the Sea. 
Purther, Great Britain and Russia have behind 
these again further fields of recruitment. The 
enemy has none. 
So much for men. 
What about equipment and munitions ? The 
enemy has full equipment for his diminishing 
numbers. The equipment of Ihe Allied reserves', 
on the other hand, is still proceeding, and the 
process is slow. It none the less remains only a 
question of time, for, within a certain calculable 
Ymut of time known to the higher command of the 
Allies, all this immense untouched reserve, East 
and West, Avill be fully equipped. With every 
passing week a larger aiid a larger proportion 
i-eceive their equipment; tlie plant for increasing 
the output is itself rapidly growing, and the 
neutral supplies of the world are open to the 
Allies as well. 
It is the same with munitions. Had we 
stopped cotton going into Germany the war would 
already have been over. Even as it is, while the 
enemy can produce munitions at a certain rate, 
the Allies in the West can produce and procure 
them faster in proportion; the Allies in the East, 
that is the Russians, can, w'ith much more delay, 
gradually bring their output and purchase from 
neutral markets up to the required standard. 
The thing is simple arithmetic, and there is 
no concei^■able rebutting argument. 
All that does not mean a necessary and calcul- 
able vietoiy for the Allies. It only means that 
such a victory is more and more probable with 
every week that passes, as one week passes after 
another without the enemy's obtaining a decision. 
What is meant by " the enemy's obtaining a 
decision '' ? The term signifies, not the occupa- 
tion of territory or of this or that town — 
this is a political, not a military factor — but 
the destruction in a greater or less degree of 
the Allied armies. Eor instance, if the 
enemy had been successful in his great attempt 
of May and June to separate the southern from 
the northern Russian forces, he would have been 
able to attack one of the divided parts at will, and 
certainly to overwhelm it. This would have left 
the remainder in a state of gross inferiority, and, 
therefore, subject to similar destruction in its 
turn. He would then have been able to concen- 
trate all his remaining forces for a similar task 
upon the West. 
But short of obtaining a decision, the 
inexorable process of attrition continues, and is 
wholly in favour of the Allies and against the 
enemy, and the pace is such that the opportunities 
for a decision get less and less as time proceeds. 
It is probable that the enemy's higher com- 
mand has already decided that the time has passed 
for a true decision in the East, and that the best 
thing that can be hoped for is the seizing of the 
bridges of Warsaw and the holding of the Vistula 
line. 
That would not be a decision, but it would 
be a useful and a great preliminary step tov.ards a 
decision. With the Russians behind the Vistula 
line, the Eastern front could be held defensively 
wuth limited forces, and large forces — though 
much less than would be released by a final victory 
against the Russians— would be free to come back 
and operate in the attempt to obtain a decision in 
the West. 
The whole situation, then, is perfectly simple. 
Its terms are glaringly obvious for anyone who 
will set down known figures and known rates of 
wastage to determine. 
What, in the light of such a situation, as it 
is now clearly appreciated by all competent 
opinion in Europe, is the significance of the 
political opinion and the political effort in Ger- 
man}-, which I have described ? 
It means that tlie enemy's higher command 
must use every effort to persuade three bodies of 
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