i)cccnibcr 4, 1915. 
LAND A N D WATER. 
chosen as responsible ad\'isers, but simply as the 
departmental chiefs — ^.been bound to express the 
general judgment of the navy, the Dardanelles 
blunder could never have been perpetrated. A 
week or two ago I suggested that had the junior 
Lords, even without Lord Fisher, combined, they 
could probably have averted this misfortune. 
But obviously if they took their offices on the 
basis of no such responsibilit}' being theirs, this 
criticism of mine was unjust. And indeed a 
correspondent for whom I have the highest regard 
points out to me that the non-mention of the 
Junior Sea Lords by Mr. Churchill may be ex- 
plained by something quite different from the fact 
that he regarded them— as he treated them — as 
nonentities. For, after all, the legal fiction of the 
Board's Control had always been maintained in 
formal statements. My correspondent considers a 
far more probable explanation is that the three 
Junior Lords protested against the whole Dar- 
danelles transaction and put this protest into 
writing. The fact that they were kept in office 
when the First Lord was not, goes a long way to 
substantiate this supposition. 
NAVAL SURPRISES. 
But the point now is this. Mr. Asquith ha^ 
made it clear that the naval Lords at the Admiralty 
are a team for securing the best direction of the 
navy. The character of the naval war has changed 
materially since it became improbable that the 
German Fleet would come out. Indeed it has 
changed no less remarkably than the theory on 
which these officers were appointed to their posts. 
And none of them have had direct experience of 
the war, either in its first stage or in the second. 
Nor is this all. The personnel of the War Staff has, 
it is true, been altered since the war began, but I 
believe I am right in saying that only one of its 
chief members was taken from the Fleet. But the 
\\'ar Staff is only concerned with plans of Opera- 
tions, with Mobilisation and with Intelligence. It 
has no department dealing with the technique of the 
use of weapons, although all tactics — and hence all 
strategy— must ultimately be founded upon weap- 
ons and the ways of using them. This war has been 
fruitful in surprises, and rich in revelations of the 
unexpected power of weapons, and not less in the 
proofs of the deficiencies of many of our methods. 
The useof guns when ships are at speed and manceu- 
vring, the possibilities of indirect fire whether 
from the stationary or steaming ships, the possi- 
bilities of the submarine, and the scope and power 
of its antidotes, the art of using mines and of 
frustrating their use— on all of these things the 
Admiralty should be advised by those who can 
speak with authority, because in the light of the 
completest and most recent knowledge. 
It would of course be the merest foil}- to send 
cvcr>- officer now at Whitehall to sea, and to 
start with an entirely new team taken from the 
sea. But the gradual substitution of men whose 
war experience is personal and direct, for those 
whose knowledge is only second hand, could be 
begun at once to the great advantage of all. And 
in this connection let it be remembered that the 
direction of all the Fleets is a far more difficult 
and certainly a far more important affair, than 
the command of any single Fleet. 
The constitution of proper staffs for gunnery, 
torpedoes, mines and submarines, so that it should 
lie impossible for us to witness once more the em- 
ployment of fleets without reference to t]ie limita- 
tions of their weapons ; this is a matter of the ut- 
most urgency. These should be constituted at 
once, and, as no such staffs exist, there is not in 
this case any question of swopping horses in mid 
stream. In the last seven months the navy 
has discovered a mind of its own and knows what 
it wants to do. Mr. Asquith has restored it to its 
constitutional government. Can Mr. Balfour get 
his Council into closer touch with the Fleets ? 
He will not ha\-c an easy task. Every officer 
will be eager to get to sea. But the men at sea 
will fight like tigers to stay there. There is 
nothing more hated in the navy than an office 
stool. 
A. H. POLLEN. 
Mr. Pollen will lecture on " The Navy at War " on bclialf of Naval 
and Military Cliaritie.-i at Grosvenor House, Grosvcnor Square, Thurs- 
day, December jnd at 4 p.m. ; at Chatham, Tuesday, December 7th 
■Tt 5.13 p.m. ; at Altrincham, Wednesday, December 8th ; Shrewsbury 
School, Thursday, December gth. 
POETRY NEW AND OLD. 
" Gcorjilan Poetry.'' The Poetry Bookshop. 3s. 6d. net. 
" Omar Khayyam." Translated by John Pollen, LL.D. (East and 
West, Ltd.) 3s. 6d. net. 
While it is almost impo.ssible, at the present time, to 
select represcntati\-e work from the mass of living poets, this 
volume of Georgian poetry — a misleading title — is character- 
ised by extremely judicious selection. The best of Flecker 
is here, and his " Dying Patriot," musical as Swinburne at 
Iiis best, is certainly a poem that wll survive beyond most 
contemporary work. 
C/ordon Bottomley's dramatic poem is too much at odds 
with Shakespeare's conception of Lear and Goncril to \vin 
mucli popularity, but its rugged lines well express the spirit 
of the legendary age that the poem concerns. For the rest, 
there is the narrative verse of Masefield, the dainty^and extremely 
literary work of Walter de 1 a Mere, representative work of 
]^. H. Lawrence, and others who have won to a certain emin- 
ence. The impression of the Futurist movement is evident 
in much of the verse that the book contains, and it is fully 
illustrative of the thirst for something new, even if it be only 
a fashion in verse making that is as old as Athens. 
Dr. Pollen's translation of (Jmar is a far different thing 
from Fitzgerald's, embodying as it does the literal Persian, 
and retaining the form and metre of the original. Its author 
claims that Fitzgerald attributed to Omar " thoughts and 
expressions that no true Muslim would ever have dreamed of 
cherishing," and that his rendering is not even an approxi- 
niate translation. Certainly this present rendering shows a 
(liiferent Omar. The delicacy of Fitzgerald's work is missing, 
the style is far more blunt and direct — it gains in force and 
loses in poetry, and the sentiments seem rather confused, 
with a tendency to reiteration. A preface by tlie Aga Khan 
confesses that Fitzgerald " succeeded in a remarkable degree 
in bringing out the spirit of Omar," though " he had to 
diverge from the letter of the " Kubai'iat as well as from 
the sequence of the verses." Whether Dr. fallen's transla- 
tion, faithfully reproducing the fomi, rather than striving to 
compensate for the difference between Oriental and Western 
temperament, will stand the test of time as well as Fitz- 
gerald's, is doubtful, but this volume is well worthy of study 
side by side with the better-known form in which Fitzgerald 
rendered the Persian poet. 
Nearly every Prisoner of War in Germany asks for bread 
to be sent out to him, but this is by no means an easy matter 
owing to the long delay through difficulty of transit. Bread 
occasionally travels successfully from this country to Ger- 
many, but, on the other hand, it may not and the risk is ever 
present. That is why many people are accepting Mrs. Grant 
Duff's order to forward bread to the linglish prisoners of war 
from P^rne. It is then a matter of only three days' journey 
and the bread invariably arrives in good condition. Four 
pounds of bread a week costs a shilling, and Mrs. Grant Duff 
will receive postal orders at the British Legation at Berne. 
A new edition of Xo/es on Shoolitig has just been issued bv 
Messrs. Curtis and Harvey.. Few manuals on the subject 
manage to compress as much really useful information into a 
small space as is done in this book! and sportsmen will Jind it 
a genuine aid to good shooting. A copy will be sent on 
application to Messrs. Curtis and Harvey, Cannon Street 
House, London, if 6:1. in stamps is sent to cover postage. 
17 
