July 13, igi6 
0JVood^. 
, Entrees 4^^^^ 
^t^UshMiks 
\Tfic Koxnan Road VtUei'S' 
It is of the utmost importance then, that opinion should 
not be misled upon the character of the present operation. 
We must not judge in terms of territory or in miles of 
advance, nor even in- the threat to communications nor, 
for the moment, in terms of any retirement of the enemy's 
extended lines. If anything, indeed, every such retire- 
ment and shortening of his lines which his pride or 
political situation may permit him, is to his advantage 
and not to ours ; so long as he can effect it without severe 
losses in men and guns. 
Five days ago he shortened his line in Volhynia, falling 
back as we have seen, from the Styr. 
The value of that operation to the Allies did not lie 
in the mere occupation of territory by the Russians, or in 
their mere advance upon the map, it lay in the fact that 
the enemy had been compelled by threats above and 
below to a complete embarrassment, that he had therefore 
fallen back too late, and that he lost as a consequence of 
his bewilderment the equivalent of a whole division 
in unwounded prisoners and 45 guns. 
The Allies are within arms' length so to speak of Peronne. 
Behind Peronne, and the defensive Hne of the Somme 
above that town, lies barely fifteen miles away, St. 
Quentin, the great railway "junction, the great road 
centre, the great deoot. upon the enemy's chief line of 
communications. 
Long before the Allies should have reached St. Quentin 
(should their attack in this particular sector be carried so, 
far) the enemy would obviously be compelled to abandon 
Roye, Noyon and all the head of his great salient in 
France. Such a development, such an obvious change 
upon the map, should the enemy be compelled to it, will 
provoke I know not what enthusiasm. That enthusiasm 
will be misplaced. If the enemy retired in time and in 
good order, without serious loss, he would be the stronger 
for his retirement. 
The object of Europe in this movement is not thus to 
strengthen its enemy. The object which the forces of 
civilisation have in view, and which is at last coming 
clearly into sight, is upon the contrary, to forbid the 
enemy any such orderly retirements ; to pin him first 
here, then there, then in yet another unexpected place, 
each of which he must in turn attempt to reinforce, 
each successive one of which will involve in its reinforce- 
ment an operation more delicate and more perilous than 
the last, until we shall at last comjiel hira to one which 
will be disastrous. 
The Example of the Guard 
I think that if the future historian is asked what 
feature in the operations of the present week upon 
