L;AND AND WATER. 
iNOvcuiuci J. J, -i-y-^j- 
what is moro even there no German advance had 
taken place. 
There comes, as we go to Press, the news that 
in this very district the enemy has failed agam— 
so much the Times itself can hardly dispute 
the failure. He has abandoned the belt 
between Kemmern and the Aa, leaving behind 
him great tiuantities of stores. The Russian 
communique describes this breakdown as due to 
the pressure of their own forces. The German 
account is not yet to hand. But it is clear that 
all along the Dvina line the enemy is barely holding 
his own at the cost of admitted and most expensive 
local failures. He was turned back this week, for 
instance (for the sixth time in a fortnight), in an 
attempt to cross the river near Jacobstadt. It is 
true that his action here on the extreme north 
immobilises a great number of the Russian effec- 
tives, and that this is probably his main object ; 
but it is also true that he is paying a very heavy 
price indeed to attain that object. 
Along the rest of the Eastern and on the whole 
of the Western front, there is no further news 
worthy of analysis at the moment of going to press 
MARAUDING. 
In the news of last week there was a minor point 
upon which every student of the war in the Allied 
Camps will immediately seize, but which must 
be dealt with very cautiously in the present' state 
of our information. It is quite a new feature in 
the reports, and refers to the state of discipline 
within the enemy's forces. 
I say that such news must be dealt with 
cautiously, because in every war there is a natural 
tendency to ascribe to the enemy difficulties or 
weaknesses which are possible but not capable of 
positive proof. 
These reports of bad disciphne may be of the 
same kind. One only hears of such things through 
spies and occasional neutrals, and they are things 
not capable of statistical measurement, but de- 
pendent entirely upon moral impression. 
None the less, it is significant that the incidents 
referred to should now be noted for the first time 
and upon the Russian front. There are persistent 
and even detailed accounts of marauding in two 
parts of that front : in Courland among a popula- 
tion largely German-speaking, and in the marshy 
region East of Pinsk. While to this second item 
is added in the reports the presence of local guerilla 
bands fighting the marauders. 
Another piece of evidence is very detailed. 
It is said that on October 8th last there was a local 
mutiny upon the commtmications at the station 
of Pnievo ; that two officers were killed and a 
certain number of soldiers : that the mutiny was 
due to discontent with the conditions in which 
the families of the latest reserves had been left in 
Germany. 
Now it is worth noting that the various points 
of this story fit in one with another. 
The date is a month old. It does not 
pretend to be a sharp bit of news ; it is something 
apparently told by a witness who has got round 
to Russian Headquarters after a prolonged delay. 
That is very much what happens on the Western 
side. A piece of news from behind the German 
lines is almost the more hkely to be true in pro- 
portion to the time, within reason, it took to reach 
the IntelUgence Department. Next observe that 
the last reserves, bad material, and marrietl men 
advancing in hfe, are represented as having felt 
) 14 
this kind of grievance. Lastly, the mcident 
appear at a poifit back upon the communications 
^'Further the story tallies with what we hear 
from many other sources of discontent with the 
tnv anowLce now being given to the aimlies ot 
Reservists, coupled with the very senoub increase 
'" "Sne\ii;^?not make more of such httle jmlica- 
tions than they are worth, and even if all the^e 
new accounts are true there is something to be 
said which diminishes their importance. 
That something is this :-ln the old armies, 
analogv with which is often misleading, maraud- 
ings and little local mutinies were an almost in- 
variable sign of rot. The great breakdowns of 
the past, notably 1812, started in exactly that 
^^^^ But the armies of this great war are quite 
different from the armies of the past, and in this 
particular respect of mutiny and marauding are 
governed by three new conditions. First the 
armies are \yholly national— identical with the 
nations concerned, so that public opinion corrects 
the beginnings of a rot. , • j. 
Secondly, information is conveyed mstan- 
taneouslv from one part of the army to the other 
and little local beginnings of a rot can be quickly 
ctiGclccd. 
Thirdly, each national group feels, down to the 
humblest private soldier, that it is fighting for a 
supreme stake ; the peril of disaffection is acutely 
felt by all, and so is the necessity for disciphne. 
On the other hand, we must not forget that 
symptoms of this sort in the Prussian service are 
graver than they would be in any other. The 
strength of that service consists in this as much as 
in anything else, that the disciphne, though not 
apphed as universally as in some other services, 
is exceedingly severe where it does apply. Things 
are at a high tension in every unit and a crack is 
the more formidable. For instance, in all armies 
there is some friction between N.C.O.'s and men. 
But in the Prussian service the men really do 
detest their non-commissioned officers to a degree 
which the normal hardships of a soldier's hfe does 
not discover elsewhere. 
PRICES OF FOOD IN GERMANY. 
There has been mentioned in these reports 
the discontent caused by the rise of food prices 
within the Central Empires, and we have had 
many reports of this for a long time past and of 
its consequences. Here, again, we must not 
exaggerate. The strain is local and applies only 
to certain articles, but it is quite certain that it is 
being felt in particular places with regard to 
particular things very severely, and it is not 
possible or even probable that it may lead to 
trouble during the winter. It is felt in four ways : 
In the matter of meat (including pork, which is 
the German staple) ; in the matter of wool and 
textiles, which make a difficulty in clothing ; in 
the matter of the exceedingly small and insufficient 
allowances to the families of the men at the front ; 
and in the matter of employment. 
All the talk we hear about German national 
organisation does not behe the fact that modern 
Germany is, in the main, a plutocracy ; and that 
the mass of its urban population is proletariat. 
The same is true of Great Britain, but (iieat 
Britain has met the danger by lavish allowances 
to the proletariat side of the State out of the 
pockets of the capitalist side — at the risk of finding 
