Deccmbci i8, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
shores and interfering but slightly with the general 
comfort of the community. 
It is no wonder that upon such startling mis- 
conceptions (and they were very common) of 
European War, the development of the present 
campaign should have bred disappointment, and 
the two chief elements in that disappointment have 
been to this section of opinion the necessity for 
endurance, and the obvious possibilities of failure. 
The fact that the victory of one's own side is not 
an obvious and necessary part of the scheme of 
things. 
If, however, one forgets this irrational mood 
into which a portion of the public has fallen and 
considers the situation as it is, then it is precisely 
the factor of time which appears as an advantage 
to the Alliance, though there are other factors 
gravely disadvantageous to it. 
In order to see the situation as it is, the best 
way is always to take the point of view of the 
enemy's Higher Command. That has been the 
method of every Captain in history who was not 
contemptible, and it has the obvious merits of 
discovering (if one's analysis is just) the elements 
of strength existing against one's own position 
which we otherwise might have overlooked, and 
at the same time of showing us where our own 
opportunity lies. 
It is true that there are always psychological 
Dr mental elements in th.e enemy's Commander's 
point of view which one can only guess at and 
which very often falsify the picture. For instance, 
Napoleon Buonaparte, during the first days of his 
occupation of Moscow in 1812, certainly exaggerated 
the chances in his favour and was subject to 
illusions both upon the Russian character and 
upon the mere mathematics of the military situa- 
tion : The enemy Higher Command at this moment 
may possibly suffer from similar misjudgments of 
mental factors in the situation. He may think 
the French to be a softer people than they are, 
or the British a less consecutive people than they 
are. But he has before him certain elements 
of calculation which he cannot ignore. 
Let us see how the situation appears to h'm. 
THE WAR SEENi FROM THE ENEMY 
HIGHER COMMAND. 
Of his plan as a whole he now knows, like a 
piece of ancient history, that he has failed in that 
rapid action which was his one clearly thought-out 
scheme. 
He failed to surround, pierce, or put out of 
action in any fashion, the French Armies ; there- 
fore, Iris war, which was to have been the end of a 
trilogy, the short, sure, triumphant and conclusive 
chapter parallel to, but greater than, the chapters 
of 1866 and 1870, has become an immensely 
expensive, not yet disastrous, but already very 
doubtful thing. He is in this respect like a man 
who goes out in his yacht from Plymouth to make 
Cherbourg (having previously telegraphed to 
London that he would dine there a week later) 
and finds himself more than a month afterwards 
in tlxe middle of the North Atlantic, and in very 
bad weather at that. 
All this, I say, is ancient history to him as to 
us. The gentleman who had gone out in his 
yacht to go to Cherbourg on a fine summer's day 
and found himself a month later in the middle of 
the North Atlantic, would still have legitimate 
cause to congratulate himself if, after carrying 
away a good deal of his gear, he had managed to 
weather one or two bad stomis and was now at 
least upon a course. He might say " this is not 
what I bargained for, but I am not lost." 
Take it for all in all, the general attitude of the 
enemy's Higher Command at this moment admits 
the possibility of winning through. It is believed 
possible by that Higher Command that political 
action, or the political effect of his military position 
in the near futm-e, will permit him to save the 
Prussian State and its dependents. He does not 
hope for more. Every word uttered by his 
spokesmen, by his dupes and by his agents, in 
(^lermany, in the neutral countries and even (to 
their shame) among the belligerent populations 
opposed to him proves the limitations of his present 
demand. He no longer talks of European domina- 
tion. He no longer preaches the necessity and 
beauty of aggression. He now talks of the terri- 
tory he now occupies as an asset for bargaining. 
He now talks of an " honourable " peace — the first 
time this word " honourable " has ever appeared 
in a Prussian scheme of settlement. He now 
emphasises the uselessness of bloodshed and the 
wickedness of slaughter — ideas hitherto wholly 
foreign to Prussian history. 
He, however, believes still in the possibility 
of a settlement which shall leave Prussianised Ger- 
many intact and secure from future challenge — 
that is free to continue its growth and menace to 
others. He is working for that. 
But if he believes this conclusion to be possible 
through the politcial weakness of his enemies, 
through their divisions and lack of common 
direction, through their supposed weariness, 
through their diversity, through the advent of new 
forces (as yet neutral) upon his side, through the 
violent financial pressure which the cosmopolitan 
usurers hg.ve already begun to exercise in his 
favour ; yet he knows that every one of these 
elements in his calculation, valuable as they are, 
are separate from the purely military elements of 
the situation. 
These last he cannot possibly disregard. 
They are the basis of all judgments formed by 
soldiers with regard to any war. If it is an error 
to exaggerate them and often a fatal error to con- 
sider them otily in a campaign, yet it is intellec- 
tually contemptible to forget them. And no 
soldier ever does forget them. 
Now what are these purely military elements 
in the situation ? He knows them as well as we 
do. They may be tabulated in the following 
list. 
One. The great main forces of the enemy 
and of the Allies stand, and must necessarily stand, 
in Poland and in France, that is, upon the Eastena 
and the Western lines of the great siege. If the 
end of the War finds them still so standing, well 
and good for the enemy. If the enemy achieves 
upon one of these two great lines a real decision, 
well and better for him. If he really defeats — 
puts out of action — the Western or the Russian 
forces opposed to him, he can then concentrate 
upon the other and perhaps defeat that in its turn. 
On the other hand, the two great lines, the Eastern 
and Western, equally offer an oppc«:tunity for 
his foes. Let him suffer a decisive defeat upon 
either and he is immediately lost. He cannot, 
after such a defeat, fight a prolonged losing cam- 
])aign, any more than a man who has kept two 
doors shut with his outstretched hands can fail to 
collapse if one of the two doors is forced, or 
