February 17, 1916. 
LAND AND WAT>ER 
TRUE AND FALSE IMPRESSIONS 
OF THE WAR. 
By Hilaire Belloc. 
IT has become apparent in the course of the last few 
weeks that the main danger, so far as this country 
is concerned, hcs in the misleading of public 
opinion ; that is, a tendency to exaggerate every- 
thing in favour of the enemy and to belittle everything 
in favour of the Allies. Short of actual incompetence in 
the field, there is nothing so ruinous for a nation at war. 
The authorities have an easy and obvious antidote. 
They have but to issue from time to time reasoned and 
fairly detailed statements of the military situation, such as 
have already been advocated in these columns, and the 
effect on the public would be instantaneous. If the 
very grave importance of this subject were appreciated, 
if the magnitude of the negative effect attaching to its 
neglect were grasped, I am confident there would be no 
hesitation in adopting a policy so necessary. 
Example of Mr. Tennant's Figures. 
The Government hardly seems to realise, for 
instance, the effect of those brief unmodified statements 
upon enemy and British wastage made by the Under- 
Secretary for War in the House of Commons. In the 
form in which the statements were made, the public were 
left to infer that the enemy permanently lost at the rate 
of 50 per cent, of his strength in seventeen months — that 
is, hardly 3 per cent, a month. Almost in the same 
breath we have another official announcement that the 
wastage of British infantry is five times as great, that is, 
15 per cent, a month ! 
When the thing is put as baldly as that no one can 
miss it ; and of course the authorities responsible for such 
statements will tell us that they never intended to create 
such grotesque misunderstandings. But those misimder- 
standings are created, and necessarily created, when un- 
critical partial statements are the only official information 
vouchsafed. 
The other day the Italian Government issued a 
document of capital importance to which only one 
newspaper, the Morning Post, did anything like justice. 
In this excellent resume, the Italian authorities showed 
the extreme importance and value of the work that had 
been done on the Alpine and Adriatic front. They gave 
a most vivid and accurate summary of the present position 
and of the solid foundation on which it was based. They 
estimated for us the permanent numbers occupied upon 
the enemy's side and their rate of wastage. They des- 
cribed the stategical value of the work done so that any 
man reading the summary rose from his reading wth a 
clear perception of how the alliance stood in that particular 
field. 
But until that document appeared, what was the 
general impression which had been given to our public in 
this country ? It was of the most ludicrously insufficient 
type followed by what is graver than insufficiency, misap- 
prehension. 
Irresponsible telegrams from time to time announced 
the fall of Gorizia, simply because such " news " was 
sensational. Of the solid work accomplished by the 
Itahan Service, of their excellent and dominating heavy 
artillery, and of the mountain warfare, and of its meaning 
in the general campaign, there was but little said in the 
. Press, and nothing official. 
Example of Salonika. 
Take the position of Salonika. To read a certain 
sort of comment upon this undertaking, the successful 
fortification of that base, its present ample munitionment 
and now completed value as a threat upon the flank of 
all the enemy's work towards the East, one would 
imagine that the general officers directing the Allies had 
blundered there with no precise plan in their minds and 
were staying there with no clear idea of why they should. 
Nothing would have been easier than to issue from time to 
time, Avithout telling the enemy anything he did not 
know, a reasoned statement showing of what value the 
move was, or at least, of how the enemy regarded it. One 
could construct from German criticism alone, as it has 
appeared since the expedition was undertaken, a mo«it 
illuminating document which would give, to the mass of 
educated opinion at least, a view of the whole business 
in its right perspective and with its proper weight. As 
it is, the public is left either mystified or suspicious 
and ready, when the first strain comes, to be alarmed. 
Example of Trench Work. 
Or take this example : The veiy meaning of trench 
work. There is a great mass of opinion — I do not say 
it is universal, but it is formidable — which conceives that 
unless there is a movement upon the map nothing is 
happening : That a besieged enemy in his trenches 
suffers no loss, and that shells arc exchanged as a sort 
of " reprisals." Why could we not have from time to 
time an exposition for the public guidance of what 
trench work is, and of how the enemy is suffering under 
it ? It is only a question of building a bridge from the 
experience of the hundreds of thousands of men abroad 
to the appreciation of the millions of the public at home. 
The Times Figures. 
Now it is generally accepted that the total mobilis- 
able strength of efficients in the German Empire is more 
than eight and less than nine million men for the first two 
years of the war. The military correspondent of The Times, 
in an article which appeared in that paper cm February 
9th, emphasises the point (it is rather late in the day to 
do so) that numbers form the one fundamental factor in 
the situation, and that a just estimate of enamy losses 
is the only way to judge the present nature of the war. 
The article in question slightly overestimates the total 
mobilisable force of the German Empire, but this is due 
to an odd and unsatisfactory way of arriving at the 
figures, for it takes vague guesses at the proportion of 
various trades that can be mobilised instead of following 
the more direct and exact methods of analogy — e.g., 
the known percentage of inefficients, the known maximum 
percentage mobilisable in a population — wth other 
countries. 
't wisely warns its readers against counting in men o\-er 
military age who may be summoned because these, though 
they swell numbers on paper, have little military value. 
But the gist of the article is none the less an example 
of the vicious method contrasted with the right method ol 
appreciating the present state of the campaign. It is 
essentially a plea — an argument to a brief — instead of a 
cold and dispassionate analysis. Its object is to get the 
eaders of The Times to believe in the smallest possible 
amount of German dead-loss, just as the object of a 
barrister in Couil is to get the judge and jury to believe 
everything they possibly can in f;.'vour of their client. 
I will begin my criticism of the article in question, 
and of the numbers at which it arrives, by pointing out 
the really remarkable contrast between its conclusions 
and those printed in the very s.ame coliunns only a few 
weeks ago. The Times military correspondent, in an 
article which appeared on January 7 th, estimated the 
German losses at three and a i'aalf million. 
The article which I am ab<3ut to criticise suddenly 
reduces the original estimate by nearly a million ! 
That is startling to say the least of it ! 
It lessens the value of the reasoning to follow. When 
one sees the same writer pass from the admission of three 
and a half milHon to a novel plea for a milhon less, and 
make this amazing diminution without apology or 
introduction, one cannot but be rihaken in one's confidence. 
