May 18, 1916. 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
EMPIRE HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON, W.C 
Telephone: HOLBORN 2828 
THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1916 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Germany's Cry for Peace. By Louis Raemaekers i 
The King of the Belgians 2 
Are We Winning the War ? (Leading Article) 3 
Alternatives Before the Enemy. By Hilaire Belloc . 4 
Reality of Sea Power. By Arthur Pollen 9 
Sortes Shakespearian^. By Sir Sidney Lee 9 
The Charge. By Patrick MacGill 12 
How German Public Opinion is Formed. By Colonel 
Feyler 13 
Renascence or Decay. By Joseph Thorp 14 
Where America Stands. By Lewis R. Freeman 15 
The So-Called " Air Muddle." By F. W. Lanchester 17 
Chaya. By H. do Verc Stacpoole 19 
The West End 24 
Choosing Kit xiii. 
ARE WE WINNING THE WAR? 
THESE words form the te.\t of a jeremiad contri- 
buted by Dr. Dillon to the current number of 
the Fortnightly Review ; and since this article 
has attained a wider publicity through the 
columns of the Daily Mail, his arguments deserve careful 
examination. 
In the first place he deprecates any attempt to belittle 
the German achievements in front of Verdun on the 
curious ground that the enemy's losses " cannot have 
exceeded 100,000, as there were hardly more than 300,000 
German troops in action." Can Dr. Dillon really be 
ignorant of the standing fact that the number of divisions 
actually idcntitied up to May ist was 31 and in addition is 
it not obvious that an enemy does not launch an attack on 
this scale without taking care to provide adequate 
reserves ? Has the author of this remarkable military 
estimate not heard that the enemy was compelled over 
and over again to reconstruct these divisions. His losses 
during the first month of the Verdun fighting were, on 
the most conservative estimates, at least 100,000, and at 
the end of April certainly exceeded a quarter of a million. 
Even the ofiicial German lists, though a ludicrous under- 
estimate of the truth, admit a monthly loss of over 
150,000 in the first eighteen months of war, and are we 
to believe that in the three months of the most sanguinary 
fighting of all, their losses have miraculously reached 
a minimum ? As for the success or failure of this costly 
effort, the best way is to compare the flamboyant state- 
ments of the German press in the early days of the attack 
with the insignificant results achieved. 
It is clear that we must look elsewhere for evidence 
that we are not winning the war, and it is scarcely to be 
found in the following statement that " the enemy is 
attacking us and attacking violently. The Allies arc, 
as usual, on the defensive, amply supplied, one piously 
hopes; with men and munitions." It is difficult, we may 
say in parenthesis, to forgive the scorn which is barely 
concealed by the piety of D:. Dillon's hopes, but the 
real answer to this contention is that attacks, even violent 
attacks, are only justified by success, and proceed quite as 
often from necessity as from strength. 
Dr. Dillon apparently finds some consolation, though 
very httle, when his eyes are turned towards the sea : 
but here again he is full of gloomy foreboding : " We 
must sing Britannia rules the waves in a lower key : 
for a time has come, when every nation, however in- 
significant in its navy, may, if it possess a sufficient 
number of submarines, cripple or ruin the sea-borne 
commerce of its enemy. And that is the task which the 
Germans have set themselves to-day. . . . How 
thoroughly and scientifically they have worked out the 
problem we know." Unfortunately the above was 
written before the German Chancellor's speech to the 
Reichstag, reported in the Morning Post of May 12th, 
which contains the significant admission, " A great 
mistake has been committed in overstating the value of 
the submarine campaign against England. Our naval 
experts no longer believe in the probability of reducing 
England to starvation and ruin by submarines, even if 
the war lasts for another two years." 
Perhaps the most extraordinary argument of all those 
used by Dr. Dillon, is his estimate or rather obsession 
concerning the number of German reserves. He ridicules 
as a puerile fabrication the story that they have melted 
down to 700,000, and in a bewildering sentence commits 
himself to the following opinion : "I venture to affirm 
that the Germans still have between 7 and 8 million men 
to draw from. ... I go still further and assert that 
they dispose of nearly two million of their best troops 
whom they have kept back for the coup de grace." If 
the words " dispose of " are meant to indicate that the 
flower of the German army is kept in reserve, the con- 
ception is so childish and so opposed to the very elements 
of probability, not to say strategy, that we cannot impose 
it on the German General Staff. Is it conceivable that 
they would have called up. their 1916 and 1917 classes 
while they had still a large reserve of trained and seasoned 
troops to draw upon ? They have indeed " disposed of 
two million of their finest troops," and twice that number, 
but in a sense that is irrevocable. Our readers are 
familiar with the detailed evidence of German losses 
which has been presented in these columns ; we know 
that their total mobilisable strength did not exceed nine 
million, that the irreducible minimum of their permanent 
losses was 3J million at the end of 1915 ; that the fighting 
during the last three months has been of the most bloodv 
and desperate character ; and consequently the suggestion 
that their available forces still number from seven to eight 
million is a patent absurdity. 
What is the panacea for all our troubles ? What ig 
the sure road to victory ? According to Dr. Dillon, all 
that is needed is a change of Government. Of our 
statesmen he says, " If we may judge by public acts, their 
conception of the problem is how to worst the Teuton 
abroad without deranging our present political and social 
ordering at home, without running counter to party 
traditions, without hurting the susceptibilities of neutrals, 
without compelling universal national service, and without 
securing the co-operation of labour." 
We regard this indictment as false in every particular. 
Within two years the military and naval forces of the 
British Empire have reached the stupendous total of five 
million men, which indicates that the Government has 
not only faced but carried out the obligations imposed 
upon it : the derangement of the political and social order 
is witnessed by the willing sacrifice of every class in the 
community : party distinctions, so far as the Press will 
allow, have been swept aside: the blockade has been enforced 
to a degree which has sometimes moved the resentment of 
neutrals, to say nothing of the expostulation of the enemy ; 
compulsory service has been adopted, and the Prime 
Minister' through the exercise of his unique talents, has 
avoided that discord between labour and capital which 
would have proved disastrous to the country. The true 
answer to the question, " Are we winning the War? " 
is to be found in the sudden anxiety for peace which has 
smitten the German conscience : that is not the herald of 
victory. It is the dawning recognition that, in the 
inevitable sequel, the might of Germany must be broken 
