July 24, 1915. 
LAND AND .WATEE 
general, and mainly civilian, opinion that things 
have arrived at a stale-mate, and that the pro- 
longation of the war is useless. These three 
bodies of opinion are to be found in the domestic 
opinion of the enemy, in the public opinion of the 
Allied populations, and in that of neutral 
countries, particularly the United States. 
In a military sense, the idea of a stale-mate 
is nonsense. It has no meaning. There is no such 
thing as a military situation which is, of its 
nature, eternal. There is no such thing as a 
military situation which is incapable of solution. 
However long the process, it inevitably turns, 
after a certain lapse of time, in one direction or 
the other. 
To take the strongest example of all, the siege 
of a fortress in the early Middle Ages. Under the 
conditions of that time, the powers of the defence 
were at their maximum against the attack. A 
stone building, the result of years of labour, and 
exactly calculated to the military conditions of its 
period, was provided with water supply, and with 
stores for years, tenable by quite a small garrison, 
could hold out on occasion for years. There are 
innumerable examples of attempts to reduce such 
a resistance which failed. But the failure was 
never a stale-mate. If after a prolonged effort the 
assault despaired of success and raised the siege, 
the result was either due to a political breakdown 
or to the inability of the assault to provide further 
equipment. If neither of these causes were 
present, the siege, however prolonged, ultimately 
and necessarily ended in the capitulation of the 
besieged. 
But, really, the point does not need to be 
laboured. It is self-evident; at least, it is self- 
evident when it is clearly seized. 
Now, the whole value of the present Prussian 
political effort lies in the fact that the mass of 
civilian and general opinion in all countries fails 
to grasp that self-evident proposition. A pro- 
longed defence, especially if its siege character is 
masked by the great extent and fluctuation of the 
operations — by successful " sorties " and holding- 
up of the besiegers, as now in the East — comes to 
be looked at as an indecisive struggle, which can 
never be resolved. 
If Prussia can succeed in making this opinion 
general, it will so re-act upon even the higher 
command of the Allies as to serve her purpose in 
obtaining peace, even after she has despaired of 
getting it by a true decision in the field. 
To spread this unmilitary conception in her 
own country and among her dependents is doubly 
useful. First : It affords moral support to her 
Govei*nment and her higher command under con- 
ditions of loss which would otherwise prove in- 
tolerable; next, it powerfully affects opinion 
abroad, especially where that opinion is malig- 
nant or incompetent or both — as is particularly 
the case with those newspaper owners who have 
recently been playing the enemy's game in this 
country. 
As regards the neutral opinion of the Allies, 
to spread this conception of a stale-mate is easy 
in proportion to the licence allowed to private in- 
terests which secretly favour an early and dis- 
astrous peace. It is notorious that such licence 
is pushed to much greater length among some of 
the x\llies than among others. It is sulhcient for 
the moment to point out here that the permission 
by the Government and by the military authori- 
ties of such a propaganda is equivalent to the 
permission of treason. 
It will, perhaps, be necessary to write in 
these columns in more detail upon this very dan- 
gerous feature in the situation. For the moment 
the panic-mongers are under a cloud and a little 
afraid. Their piofessional political servants are 
lying low and their newspapers have put the 
brake on. AVith the first bad news their activities 
will revive. 
As to opinion in neutral countries, and par- 
ticularly in the United States, the main effort of 
the Prussian Government consists in pleading a 
moral apology, and perliaps the chief effort in this 
direction, among countless others, is to be found 
in the pamphlet of which General Bernhardi is 
at least the nominal author. 
BERNHARDI'S PAMPHLET FOR AMERICA. 
I DO not know hovv- far this docum.ent is 
familiar to readers in Europe. At any 
rate, it is very generally ignored. I will, 
therefore, be at the pains of considering its 
chief points. 
The appeal is about 4,000 words in length. 
It is veiy verbose and diffuse, and upon a careful 
analysis one can discover no more than fourteen 
definite, but not very definite, statements. I 
have picked them out and reproduce them here. 
It is of advantage to note even in such vague 
and clumsy work the nature of the appeal made, 
because the thing is an epitome of the v/hole 
Prussian effort, of its ignorance of the world, of 
its stupidity, of its laboriousness, of its reitera- 
tion, 01 its certainty of itself, of its insistence and 
patience, of its doom to failure — in a word, of 
what is called its " efficiency." 
These vital sentences of the document, as 
published in the American Press are, in their 
order, as follows : 
I. " England, through its military agrccineuts, had 
long before violated the spirit of Belgian neutrality." 
(Par. 1.) 
II. 
III. 
IV. 
VI. 
VII. 
" In France no secret is made of the fart that the 
first opportunity was seized to draw the sword." 
(Par. 3.) 
" In Russia it is frankly admitted that the crushing of 
Austria and the conquest of Constantinople con- 
stituted the objects of carefully-prepared war." 
(Par. 3.) 
" After 1864 universal conscription became the 
common property of the entire German nation, the 
palladium of its further development." (Par. 15.) 
(This is an argument rebutting the view of abhor- 
rence expressed by civilised Europe against tht 
Prussian military system.) 
And again : ** 
" There took place in the army an equalisation of all 
social differences." (This for the American public!) 
(Par. 18.) 
" German militarism has elevated luinianity in 
them " (in the Prussian soldiery), " which to-day is 
amply proved by the humane character of our 
methods of war." (Par. 25.) 
" Our enemies want to justify the war tliey crimin- 
ally started." (Paf- 26.) 
"Nearly all States hastened to imitate the German 
Army system, not as a precautionary measure against 
a feared German policy of force, but because the 
political importance of the system was recogui.sed^ 
^ ^ (Par. .Jl.) 
11 
