December i8, 1915. 
AND AND WATER 
time in the nature of things will remedy. It is 
equally true that time (coupled with the stupidity 
of such actions as the sinking of the Ancona'j 
makes for strengthening the bonds between Italy 
and the AUiance. While as for the calculalion 
that the new British Armies will fail through their 
over-rapid recruitment, training and organisation 
we now know by experience, as does the enemy, 
that he has quite miscalculated. 
There is indeed, an element of weakness in 
suddenly constituted forces of such enormous 
size with nea ly new cadres. But everyone now 
admits that the experience of the war has been 
much more in favour of those forces than the 
enemy, or even the Allies, had been led to expect. 
In general then, the enemy, if he is using a 
sober judgment in the matter, sees the element of 
time working against himself : already working 
against him in that he is playing a delicate game 
of depending upon insufficient reserves and keeping 
back his new levies for later work, and necessarily 
against him if he obtains no peace in the coming 
winter and spring — for later the prolongation of 
the war will be incUning affairs very rapidly 
indeed against him. 
A legend confined to this country, or rather 
to some sections of this country, suggests that this 
growing inferiority of the enemy's position in 
man-power is made up by his superior power of 
production. In the production of equipment, 
this is still probably true. In the production of 
munitions it certainly is not. And it is further 
evident that he has reached his maximum of 
production (for there is only so much shell to be 
got with so much labour — no matter what your 
production of steel or your plant may be) while 
the Allies are nowhere near the maximum of 
theirs upon the West. Further, the neutral market 
in complete munitions (for what it is still worth) is 
open to the Allies and closed to the enemy. 
If this is the aspect of the matter (as it cer- 
tainly is) to the enemy's Higher Command, we 
shall next do well to consider how the same facts 
look to the enemy's general opinion, because the 
view taken by that general opinion is a very strong 
political factor in the situation as a whole. We 
have not so much to consider its exactitude or 
illusion, its wisdom or folly, as the effect which it 
has upon the prolongation of hostiUties. 
THE CIVILIAN AND GENERAL 
OPINION OF THE ENEMY. 
There is little doubt, if we take the evidence 
of reliable observers, that not only German civilian 
opinion, but the general opinion of the country, 
including the rank and file of the Army in Germany, 
is that the central powers have already won the 
war. 
I repeat, it is not to our purpose to dilate upon 
the magnitude of this error. The views of a whole 
people, true or false, affect policy in proportion 
to the intensity with which they are held, and 
held intensely and tenaciously such illusions are. 
It would be easy to point out in any one of a 
dozen sciences popular errors quite as numerous and 
quite as ineradicable save in the test of experience. 
It is not only in the military art and science, it is 
in every branch of special study that this is the 
case. 
For inscflnce, in economics : the mass of the 
people will always regard a five pound note as 
something absolute ; a few experts have heard of 
RAEMAEKERS' CARTOONS. 
We are glad to be able to announce that ie>e 
have now secured, so far as sixpenny journals are 
concerned, exclusive rights to the original work of 
Mr. Louis Racmakers, the distinguished Dutch 
cartoonist, who in the future will be a regular con- 
tributor to Land and Water, and will supply 
weekly an original cartoon to its pages. 
The exhibition of Mr. Raemakers' drawings has 
opened the eyes of the British people to the full 
reality and horror of the war. It has drawn all 
London to it, for the sincerity of the work is only 
equalled by the extraordinary ability of the draughts- 
man. Mr. Raemaekers before the war was a land- 
scape painter and an illustrator of books, but hence- 
forth he will be known only for his cartoons. There 
is no living artist with his power of depicting the 
very soul of an episode, and he combines with this 
a keen wit, so that his pictures are often the most 
biting satire imaginable. 
Mr. Arthur Bamnann in a letter to the " West- 
minster Gazette " of December 14th, in which he 
pleads Jor national and official recognition of 
Mr. Raemaekers' work, writes : — " A genius — ap- 
parently the only genius produced by the war — has 
come amongst us as our friend and mostpowerfid ally. 
Long after the leading and ' leaded ' articles in the 
papers have been Jorgotten, and the innumerable 
books on the war have fallen into the dusty crypt 
oj back numbers, the cartoons of Mr. Raemaekers 
will live to Jeed the fierce indignation oj succeeding 
generatiotts. . . . Louis Raemaekers has nailed 
the Kaiser to a cross oJ immortal injamy." 
The original cartoons which Mr. Louis Rae- 
maekers will henceforth draw for Land and Water 
will be anew commentary on the War ; our readers will 
be able to judge from them how its varying episodes 
and incidents present themselves week by week to 
the mind of a Neutral. 
index numbers and can discuss the inflation of 
the currency and gold reserve, but for the mass of 
the people a five pound note is a piece of absolute 
value. When it goes only half as far as it used 
to do, you will never convince them that it has 
changed in value. They will still believe that 
it is all the other things — the things they purchase 
with it — that have changed in value. 
' It is just the same in military affairs. This 
general or popular opinion regards an advance as 
the one proof of military success, a retirement as 
the one proof of military failure. War upon an 
enemy's soil is a successful war and war upon your 
own soil is an unsuccessful war. It is obvious that 
there is a large element of truth in this attitude. 
It is equally obvious that as a final attitude it is 
fatuous. Anyhow it is the final attitude of all 
general opinion in all wars. \\'e had an excellent 
example of it here the other day when the destruc- 
tion of a quarter of a million of the enemy's forces, 
with the expense of about half the same loss upon 
our side, was a bitter disappointment and almost 
