A N D AS D W A T E R 
December ii, 1915. 
that lias been Generally eharactcrised as it deserveil. 
Hut to my nund the interest of these rexelations 
is very far from being limited to tlu-ir disclosure 
of the. general fact tliat the (ierman poor are 
subjected to real privations, and that the whole 
of the (ierman working classes are furiously anxious 
for peace. Tht' chief significance of what we 
have learned during the last six weeks seems to 
me largely to consist in something quite different. 
The official excuse for allowing the [■Reichstag 
to discnss peace was that (iermany found the 
Allies' blindness to the extent and character of the 
(German victories cjuite incomprehensible. \Mu>t 
the War Lords have revealed to us then is this. 
They find nothing in the Allies' attitude at all 
incomprehensible themselves. But at every stage 
daring the last sixteen months, the Germans have 
been told that the\- were winning. The Church 
bells of Berlin have pealed for victor\- after victorv 
in a Capital beflagged for a triumph. The War 
Lords have not deceived themselves, but they 
ha\e deceived the people. Even the Vord'uerts, 
the most candid of the daily Press, and Maximilian 
Harden, the most independent of German pub- 
licists, are convinced that the war up to now, having 
been a tale of (k'rinan land successes, shows that 
Germany is proof against land failure. The con- 
hdence of the people in the rightne.ss of this judg- 
ment seems quite^ absolute ; indeed, the Sociahst 
attitude in asking for a peace discussion, interprets 
the workman's mind for us on this subject. It 
is not an appeal to the Allies to stop further 
bloodshed ; it is an appeal to the German military 
party to be satisfied with the victories that it 
has won. If only the Emperor will say, through 
the Chancellor, that his terms are moderate, and 
—in view of the German successes— honourable 
to his oppojients, then the acquiescence of his 
.opponents in these terms can surely be taken for 
granted. 
The yearning for pieace then arises primarily 
irom a mistrust of the military caste. The miUtary 
class is very largely in its constitution, and almost 
entirely in its spirit, identified with the k\nd- 
.owning and farmer caste— the only interest in 
=Gexiiiany to whom the British blockade has brought 
.■not privations but gigantic profits. Both the food 
question and the peace question then are different 
aspects of a social question in Germany, and 
those that are interested in them must be pacified 
by discussion or else the smooth working of the 
all-per\ading military discipline may be impaired. 
What Germany then still has to learn is this. 
The making of war was in the War Lords' hands 
and they made it, but the making of peace is not 
in their hands at all. There are no terms they 
can offer which will be accepted and precisely 
because it is they who offer them. The privations 
of the German poor will continue, not because the 
military caste unreasonably insists on further 
glory and victory, but because the AlHes insist on 
the War Lords being made for ever quite impotent 
in the matter of peace and war again. And the 
zVUies are in a position to insist upon this policy 
and for two quite conclusi\e reasons. Their 
man-power on land is already eciual to preventing 
any decisive (ierman military success, and its 
growth will sooner or later make it equal to en- 
compassing (ierman militar\- defeat. Secondh'. 
and more imp<jrtant still, the Allies, principally 
through (ireat Britain, hold the sea in a vice grip. 
It is the last that must be the decisive factor, 
if only because it is the most enduring. It is this 
truth that is not vet assimilated by the discon- 
tented thinkers who write for the Vomaerts, nor 
vet b\- the brilliant critic who edits the Zukimft. 
"ff the truth has dawned upon them, it is one that 
the\- dare not express. But there are here and 
there isolated statements that suggest that this 
truth cannot for ever be concealed. Professor 
Elamm states, somewhat brutall\-, that the " free- 
dom of the seas " cannot be secured by treaty 
and convention; — i piece of perspicacity quite 
creditable to the (jerman Professor. But when he 
goes on to say that English sea-power must be 
broken, one wonders which of his countrymen 
his. will suggest a methotl by which it is to be done ? 
Again, take the theory that the freedom of the 
occupied territories in Belgium, France and Poland 
can be secured In- a European surrender on the 
Balkan question. This is an effort to save the 
faces of the war party. A new road to the East 
is to be substituted tor the lost highroad of the 
sea. This, again, is an admission by the All 
Highest that he and his advisers at least, know 
that the sea game is up. Xo " road to the East " can 
replace the lost high roads of the ocean. Germany, 
Russia and Austria combined might exist indefi- 
nitely without sea power, because through Russia 
all the roads to Asia would be open. But 
Constantinople leads to nowhere, except ports 
that cannot be used if , the British Fleet is 
unconquered. Turn where she will then, it is sea 
power that stands in the way of German freedom. 
It is barred^ — as a Westphalian paper recently 
observed — by a door, the hinges of which are in 
England. 
It should be our business to make all Germany 
understand this truth as clearly as its leaders 
understand it already. And the .way to bring the 
facts about sea powei home is to exert it insis- 
tently, and relentlessly. 
So far as our blockade can touch food and food 
substitutes, it must be pressed to the utmost so 
that what is difficult to bear already shall be made 
unendurable. But the great objective is something 
more than to educate the German people in the 
amenities of sea warfare. They must be made to 
understand that from first to last they have been 
deceived by their leaders into sanctioning a united 
effort to conquer the world. The effort was 
doomed to failure the moment the British Fleet 
accepted the challenge, and it is for the British 
Fleet to bring this truth home to Germany now. 
Its doing so m^iy be decisive, because not even 
Germany can carry on the war indefinitely against 
the wishes of the people. It has carried the 
people with it by proclaiming and bv promising 
victory, Will it continue, if we make "it clear that 
there has been no victory yet, and that not victory, 
but defeat is certain ? Can even the iron discipline 
of Prussia hold the machine together as soon 
as success and indemnities seem unattainable 
and, without them, every financier sees bank- 
tuptcA' admitted, every industrial sees ruin 
achieved, every working class family sees the life 
of Its men fruitlessly squandered at the front 
and the life of its women and children made in- 
tolerable at home ? 
THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN. 
A month ago I gave comparative diagrams 
of the losses of British, neutral and allied ships in 
home waters durn^g the preceding four months. 
These losses, it may^be remembered, were 4g in 
July, 66 m August, 40 in September, and t6 in 
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