LAND A X D \\ A T E R 
December iS, 19 15. 
regarded as a defeat, because it resulted in no 
considerable riiovement of the line in the West. 
Further, it niubt be remembered that general 
opinion cannot be expected to calculate even an 
immediate future. It is nourished only by the 
past. It deals only with obvious results at the 
moment. And the obvious results of the war in 
the eyes of general enemy opinion are unmis- 
takable : Prisoners nearly double in number 
those held b}' their foes, enumerated and even 
exaggerated by their Government, while we keep 
silent about ours : great belts of foreign territory 
occupied for months ; quite recently a further 
advance in the south-east. Consider that these 
tangible and obvious results fall upon a people who 
have depended on lixed labels for a generation 
wherewith to judge their neighbours. The Germans 
solemnly believe the Russians to be savages, the 
French to be physically decayed, and the British 
commonwealth to be both timid and senile, With 
such preconceptions the effect of their experience 
is inevitable. It is summed up in the speech 
of some Socialist or other speaking in the German 
Parliament last week, to the effect that the " Ger- 
man victory was one such as history had never 
yet seen." 
We must remember that in this connection 
not one man in a hundred in Germany could give 
you even the shortest outline of the Battle of the 
Marne, and that the great shock of last September 
was presented through the German press as nothing 
more than a successful resistance to a blow which 
failed, and which cost us three times as many men 
as it costs their own forces. They are further 
told that the immensely expensive fighting on the 
Dwina is no more than a deliberate marking of time, 
and their eyes are of course particularly directed 
by the censored press to the Balkans and even 
to the further East. 
We must steadily keep in mind this attitude 
of the enemy's general opinion (as distinguished 
from that of his Higher Command) as we follow 
the developments of the next few months. 
It has elements of strength and of weakness. 
Its element of strength is one and simple : 
it permits the Government at BerUn and the 
chiefs of the armies to act w'ith complete freedom. 
By the new year the Allies will have actually 
killed, in one way or another, close upon 1,000,000 
Germans and probably three-fourths as many 
Austro-Hungarians. But the strain of the enor- 
mous losses these figures cohnote is relieved by the 
sense of victory as by an anaesthetic ; and "it is 
true of the enemy of to-day, as it has been true of 
every country in a similar situation in the past, 
that the behef in victory excuses everything in a 
Government. 
On the other hand, the elements of weakness 
are many. That disillusionment will lead to 
revolution no sane man would believe. Revolu- 
tion means striking at your master and even 
beating him down, and that is a thing none of the 
German race have ever done or can do. They 
have never revolted against a master, whether that 
master were a civilisation imposed upon them 
from without, or a landed class, or a local despot, 
or a system. But it makes the task of the master 
exceedingly hard and it leads to a dissipation of 
his forces when his servants, however w^illing, 
are out of touch with reality. We had an excellent 
example of this in the Chancellor's speech the other 
day in the Reichstag, every word of which was 
designed for a domestic opinion which was utterly 
wrong in its general judgment. It was the pro- 
nouncement of a Government whxh had to deal 
with subjects who could not understand why, since 
they had won the fruits of victory these fruits were 
not" presented to them : and the chief fruit of 
victory is peace. 
Another weakness which illusions of this sort 
create is parallel, and converse to, that which they 
create in our own pubhc, where the press is allowed 
to foster them. They tempt a Government to 
false military measures. We all know that the 
portion of our press which also represents the enemy 
as victorious is a weakness to us because (among 
other things) it tempts those in authority to false 
measures lest public opinion should get out of 
hand. It is inevitable that there should be in the 
enemy's country a converse phenomenon, a sort of 
necessity imposed upon the Higher Command and 
the Government, of never falling back upon lines 
shorter and more secure, of always maintaining, at 
whatever risk, some violent offensive somewhere. 
It has already bred in the enemy's conduct a 
policy, the exact opposite from which you will 
observe in the French. The whole French military 
policy has consisted in a few determined local 
offensives interrupted by long periods of accumula- 
tion. A corresponding pohcy upon the part of the 
enemy when he finds himself driven to economy 
in men will prove impossible. H. Belloc. 
Messrs. Sifton Praed and Co. have just piiblishcd a six- 
penny manual entitled Grenade Warfare, by Lieut. G. Dyson, 
intended as a summary of the training and organisation of 
grenadiers. The various branches of tliis class of work, 
from the improvising of bombs to barricading, are usefully 
summarised, and, owing to the absence of any official manual 
on the use of grenades in war, this handbook by a brigade 
grenadier officer should meet a ready welcome among junior 
officers detailed for this branch of work. 
The Canadian humorist, Mf. Stephen Leacock, gibes 
gently and pleasantly at many things in Moonbeams from 
the Larger Lunacy. (John Lane. 3s. 6d. net.) The lurid 
phrases of the modern novel, tlie persistency of club bores, 
and the possibilities of infusing an element of romance into 
algebraic problems and Gilbert Murray's work on the calculus 
are among his studies, while a seriesof truthful after-dinner 
speeches makes for genuine mirth. Unlike a number of so- 
called humorists, Mr. Leacock is really funny, as these 
sketches prove. 
At a first glance, M. Paul Sabatier's book, A Frenchman's 
Thoughts on the War (T. Fisher Unwin. 4s. 6d. net) , seems 
to incline too much to the sentimental side, but this impres- 
sion is soon modified, and before the end of the book is reached 
it is entirely erased. Many of the statements made, especially 
those in the article by Camille JulUan, with which the book 
ends, are truisms, but they are truisms which cannot be too 
often expressed. The principal lesson of the book is the way 
in which the war has awakened the national conscience of 
France, transfigured the country, and made defeat unthink- 
able and impossible. The chapter on Alsace is especially 
worthy of attention, while the book as a whole, giving the 
F'rench view of the war, should pro\'e illuminating to F:nglish 
readers. 
A good idea not only of Petrograd, but of Rusr«a and 
Russian life, may be gained from a perusal of Petrograd Past 
and Present, by \V. Barnes Steveni. ((kant Richards. 
I2S. 6d. net.) The author, whose knowledge of his subject 
has been obtained during many years residence in Russia 
has collected in this volume a mass of fact and legend, which 
IS presented in an intimate, personal fashion that renders 
the book attractive as well as useful. The ground covered 
admits of no more than sketches of the life and character of 
the Russian capital, but these sketches are well drawn, while 
attention is also paid to the famous fortress of Cronstadt 
and the not less famous stronghold of Peter and Paul. The 
author's intimate knowledf^e of his subject is guarantee of the 
accuracy of this interesting book. 
8 
