LAND AND WATER. 
August 14, 1915. 
T trust that mv readers will excuse the 
na'-row 1 n it within which I have but jus 
aUuded t the enormous effort of more than hal 
a vear in France and Flanders. I am confident 
fh^U the perfectlv impartial student, the observer 
n remote posterity, will see those months as a 
'Zl o7 mark^ing of time on the West during t^. 
winter spring, and summer; while the great 
?S" o'Wratlon. with its failure upon the 
enemv-s side ui) to the moment ot writing, it^ 
3btet.ilurl in the i--diate fiitvir^ was 
determining the war. I am confident that to 
such an observer the war. as a v.hole. would 
rWav. June, and July, and the ^-t J-IJ « 
August. 1915. be written m terras of the 1 olisli 
campaign. _, ., ^ 
While the Allies in the A\ est were thub 
delivering their local assaults upon a defensive 
line of tlK^ entrenched enemy, these assaults never 
directed to a complete breach, though each possibly 
and with good fortune capable of discovjrmg an 
entrv. tho enemy's counter-attacks proved by how 
narrow a margin (though at this momeiit at the 
maximum of his strength) he was holding on. 
Three things pro\e this in his little developed 
counter-offensive. First, his falling back upon 
occasional tricks (his use of poison was tjie most 
remarkable example). Next, the continued falsifi- 
cation of his returns. Lastly, the character ot the 
1 ^S3 111 ts 
The Western Allies made him lose during 
the seven and a half months not less than three- 
quarters of a million men. The Allies discovered 
that the qu?.litv opposed to them continually 
deteriorated. Should he decide to make his last 
effort in the West, far better material will appear 
and the strain will be heavj-. but we may conclude 
without hesitation that the process of the winter, 
spriniT, and summer of 1915 in the West had there 
now worn him threr.dbare. If a proof were 
needed, remark that the true commanders h?.ve 
been sent Eastward. There has been left m the 
West the foolish heir to the last of the liohen- 
zollerns. , r. tv r 
Ten days before the end of the month ot May 
Italy entered the field. Her determination had 
been long fixed ; her object was probably and justly 
enough local. It was her business to recover from 
the dvn?.sty which had long oppressed Italian 
soil, which' still controlled the avenues for inva- 
sion, and which still governed against their will 
some fragments of the Italian people, those terri- 
tories to which a free and self-governing nation 
had an indefeasible claim. 
She had a further object, which w?.s to pre- 
vent a German victory lest the Adriatic should 
cease to be an Italian sea. In this connection she 
had one last anxiety, divergent from the general 
aims of the Allies, her doubt lest the Slavonic 
races might not press too hardly upon her ancient 
ports, stretched along the eastern coast of that sea, 
and might not provoke some new and dangerous 
rivalry. But of these three points the first had 
far the most weight. 
The war upon this front, from Monfalcone 
to before Trent, resolved itself, like much the 
greater part of the operations in all the cam- 
paign, into a war of trench and of position. Its 
issue or even progress is at the moment of vrriting 
quite undecided. But from the most general 
point of view — that of the whole campaign — its 
value may be easily estimated. The Italian inter- 
^^ot/lcment to I.AXD and Water, Aueust n, 1915, 
vention perpetually draws a greater and a greater 
number of men from the enemy's dangerously ex- 
hausted reserve down to a new front. It has 
already certainly accounted within three months 
for more than a third, but less than half a mil- 
lion of men, who have been drawn thither and 
have suffered increasing losses, and who will, bv 
their further trials, suck up units steadfastly and 
inexorably from the shallow reservoir that still 
remains. 
Lastly, there must be mentioned the experi- 
ment of the Dardanelles. 
The story mav be briefly told. 
A glance at the map is sufficient to show that 
the mastery of the Dardanelles would give to the 
victorious Power, if it were possessed of a fleet, 
Constantinople and free entry to the Black Sea. 
With these prizes would go a broad and open 
avenue for the immediate ])rovisionment of our 
heavily-handicapped Russian Ally; the certain 
decision of the Balkan States as a whole 
against the enemy; and, far from unimportant, 
the gradual restoration of Russian exchange 
by the permission of Russian export through the 
European and warm water ports of the Bla?k 
Sea. 
The reward of effort was incalculable, but 
the difficulties in the way of success were quite 
under-rated. An effort made in the month of 
February to force the Straits without the co- 
operation of an army and a siege-train neces- 
sarily failed. When, 'far later in the season and 
after the full warning the enemy had received, 
a landing was eff'ected, that landing was success- 
ful (against the expectation of the Continent), 
through the heroic conduct of the British forces 
engaged, and in particular of the 29th Regular 
Division. That exploit was of a character not 
to be surpassed — not, I believe, to be equalled— 
even in the tradition and history of the Service 
which there earned so splendid a renown. 
But the landing once effected, it was abun- 
dantly clear, as indeed every condition of ground 
and every experience of the war should alrea,dy 
have proved, that the two positions to be carried 
before the narrows of the Dardanelles could 
be seized — the position of Achi Baba and the 
position of the Pasha Dagh — could be mastered 
only by the provision of a very ample siege- 
train. 
At the moment in which these lines are 
written, even the first of these positions is still 
intact, and opposing trenches face one another (as 
they do and will in all modern warfare with its 
enormously increased defensive power) until or if 
an overwhelming superiority of heavj- shell can 
be discharged from the victorious side. 
One of three conditions alone, it would seem, 
can determine the issue here. The provision of 
an ample siege-train with adequate munitions 
to deal with a front of over four mile.s — say, 250 
pieces of 4in. and upwards, and of these the 
greater part of high trajectory. The intervention 
of some further force from the Allies to turn the 
positions defended by the enemy. Or, lastly, the 
failure of the enemy's munitions. 
This last is possible and even expected. He 
is obtaining little or none from outside. But, on 
the other hand, his Prussian masters have already, 
taught him something; a factory is established; 
heavy shell is at this moment produced. In what 
numbers I do not know. 
H. BELLOC. 
18»- ' 
