8 
LAND & WATER 
June 29; i9t5 
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work and a portion of Fleury village, dominating both 
by about 120 to 150 ft., is the height on which tlie old 
fort of SouviUe, long dismantled, stands, and the part 
of Verdun east of the Meuse is as on the Sketch JMap at 
rather over 5,000 yards or .; miles from Fleury. He will, 
until the moment for the general counter-offensive, which 
the enemy has hoped to render premature, but which he 
has not accelerated by a day, is delivered, continue to 
gain these small parcels of ground at the expense now of 
six, now of twelve, now of twenty thousand men in each 
attack, as against a corresponding French expense of a 
third or two-fifths. When the process has reached a 
point where it shall be judged effective to launch the 
counter-offensive on other parts of the line, he will pay the 
price of his misjudgment, or will reap the reward of a plan 
which no one but himself has been able to understand. 
He must carry in the immediate future the two ridges 
marked upon the sketch C and B. C is that of Froide- 
terre, B is that of Belleville, but every yard of his advance, 
every action he undertakes, must be measured strictly 
in terms of men and not of approach. To measure it in 
any other way is to confess not only ignorance, but a sort 
of inability to understand the first principles of war. 
H. Belloc 
Mr. Belloc has left England, by invitation, on a short 
visit to the Italian front. His article in our next issue 
will be a general review of the military situation, supple- 
mented by a telegraphic summary. The week after we 
shall publish a special article by Mr. Belloc on the Italian 
position. 
1 
The Nelson Touch 
By Arthur Pollen 
THE capture of the G.E.R. mail boat Brussels is 
one of those extraordinary incidents which, like 
the escape and return of the Moeu'c, surprises 
not because it has happened, but because it 
has onlv happened once. A submarine is clearly within 
its rights in ranging alongside a merchant steamer, and 
calling upon her to surrender or take the chance of being 
sunk. Having surrendered, it is as obviously within the 
power of the submarine to compel that merchant ship 
to, conform to orders. Just how the Brussels was taken 
into Zeebrugge, we do not know. The Germans may 
have put a prize crew on board, as was recently done by a 
British submarine in the Ivattegat, or the U-boat captain 
may simply have ordered the captain of the Brussels 
to precede him into Zeebrugge under the threat of slipping 
a torpedo into him at the hrst sign of disobedience. So 
lang as the held was clear of British patrol boats, the 
cj.ptain of the Brussels would have no alternati\'e between 
obeying and risking both his ship and the lives of his 
fiassengers, so. that he could hardly hesitate. 
There is something picturesque about the procession 
of captor and captured in such conditions, ft is by 
no means unprecedented in naval war — though I know 
of no other case of a submarine imposing its commands 
in such a way. Here is a curious analogj' from natural 
history. The late Captain Robert Ramsey, for some 
years Commodore of the West River merchant and 
passenger fleet — he was in England when war broke out, 
obtained a R.N.V.R. commission as lieutenant, and died 
in the service of his country, a brave, much travelled, 
and wholly delightful seaman — had many picturesque 
stories of the ways of man and beast in China and other 
out-of-the-way parts of the world. One related (he 
capture of a coolie by a tiger on the outskirts of a Chinese 
village. The brute carried off his victim in his mouth 
and galloped full tilt to the river bank and then ran up 
stream. When the man was missed, these tracks were 
followed. Over a distance of about two miles from the 
village, the spoor of the tiger was plainly visible along 
the soft banks. Imagine the astonishment of those that 
followed, to And a human track beginning alongside the 
tiger's at this point and continuing for about three miles 
further. Both tracks went into the bush and here the 
remains of the coolie were found. It was evident that 
the tnger, tired of his load, had compelled the unhappy 
man to walk beside him. 
For the moment, the discussion in the columns of 
the Tiimes to which the Battle of Jutland ga\e ri'^e. has 
come to an end. This, I think, is to be regretted, because 
Mr. \\'ilson and Mr. Leyland have lelt the matter in 
dispute just at the point when enlightenment is most 
needed. The discussion arose out of the statement that 
in the recent battle, our fast division was for some two 
and-a-half hours in action, and, for the greater portion of 
the time, engaged a superior number of ships, all more 
heavily armoured than themselves. Mr. Wilson's case 
is that if these facts imply that an inferior British force 
engaged for no other reason than that an opportunity 
of engaging was offered, and seized that opportunity 
because it is a sort of naval tradition — already exemplified 
by Cradock's heroic but useless sacrifice at Coronel — 
then, however much we jnay admire the valour and 
daring of the performance, we must refrain from approv- 
ing its wisdom. To endorse such conduct by an appeal 
to Nelson is, he says, to misread the teaching of that 
singular man, and to put a wrong meaning on the " Nelson 
touch." " Whence," he asked, " arose the legend that 
Nelson simply taught ' Engage more closely ' ? Should 
light cruisers rush at enemy battle cruisers and battleships 
and fight them, or should they retire ? Did the frigates 
of the old days engage ships of the line — the closest 
analogue to the modern battle cruiser ? And if it is 
right for light cruisers to retire, why is it not equally 
right for battle cruisers to fall back and bring the enemy 
within range of their own battle fleet ? Why did Nelson, 
on the eve of Trafalgar, apparently retire in the hope of 
picking up Admiral Lewis's squadron ? Because he 
knew that numbers only could annihilate. Did he 
rush impetuously at the enemy or wait . patiently for 
the right opportunity ? Whatever Nelson did or did not 
do, Mr. Wilson is sure that an imequal contest is hopeless 
in these da3's. Lieutenant l^audry, a competent l<-rench 
authority, thought so before the war, and, adds Mr. 
Wilson, " the question has peculiar interest and importance 
now in view of Admiral Cradock's gallant but unavaihng 
attack at Coronel, which seems to have settled the matter 
fmally." Both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Leyland imply that what 
is meant by the " Nelson touch " was always "the object 
of the great admirals of history. " Each of them has 
wished to be in superior force and has manoeuvred where 
possible to gain such superiority." " We must not allow," 
adds the latter," the principle of challenging the enemy 
at any cost, to be e.xalted into a doctrine at these critical 
times." 
There are thus really three unanswered questions 
propounded. First, what is the theory on which a 
commander of an inferior force should sometimes engage 
a stronger ? W'hat was Nelson's teaching on this subject ? 
