July 27, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
11 
case of the Great Eastern steamer, it will be remembered, 
this activity was rewarded by a considerable success. 
Last week, however, they came out once too often. At 
midnight on the 22nd, three were sighted near the Noord 
Hinder Hght vessel, but managed to escape in the dark- 
ness. Another six were seemingly caught early in the 
morning off the Schouwen Bank. This time they came 
under the fire, according to the (German account, of some 
of our cruisers of the Aurora class. The (jermans claim 
that their destroyers reached their base uninjured. 
But it is significant that a message from Cadzand on the 
Dutch coast says that only hve,of these six returned, and 
that two of these had a heavy list. It is quite likely that 
the sixth was sunk. A proof of the German effort to put 
the most flattering meaning on these sorties is that the 
official commimique contains the assertion that those 
destroyers had raided to the mouth of the Thames without 
sighting hostile na\al forces. One supposes that this 
sort of thing is good enough for the German public. But 
it should be ob\ious that a midnight dash by torpedo 
craft undertaken with the full knowledge that only flight 
can save the force from destruction is essentially as much 
a confession of naval weakness as the battle-cruiser 
bombardment of Lowestoft, Scarborough and Whitby. 
Submarines 
The enemy's naval activity has not been limited to 
these destroyer raids. The Submarine Campaign is 
still undoubtedly formidable. In the last few weeks a 
systematic effort has been made to harry Britisli fishing 
craft, and we are now in the middle of one of those 
submarine rallies in the Mediterranean which have been 
periodic during the last three months. I propose next 
week to go in some detail into this matter. 
There are many instances of ships being attacked and 
sunk without warning, and of members of the crew being 
killed by gunfire. It is, therefore, clear that the 
undertaking givt-n by Germany to the United States on 
June 4th in the matter of visit and search and pro\ision 
for the safety of human lives is not being carried out — 
certainly not in the Mediterranean. Arthi'R Pollen, 
Friedrich von Bernhardi 
By Colonel Feyler 
GENERAL FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI is 
known in Germany as the " new Clausewitz." 
f his name he owes to his important work in two 
volumes ; Modern Warfare and Germany and 
the Next War ; the latter has been translated into French 
and English and enjoyed a very large circulation. It 
seems undeniable that Bernhardi's works have contributed 
towards Germany's declaration of war on Europe, no 
less than upon Germany's conduct of the actual hostilities. 
Nevertheless, we doubt whether these works deserve all 
the accusations and opprobrium that have been heaped 
upon them. The future alone will decide the amount of 
responsibility that devolves upon their author and upon 
the class of "thought of which he was a product or per- 
haps a victim ; for Bernhardi aspires to the status not 
only of a strategist but also of an historian and a philoso- 
pher. He interprets the actions and obligations of the 
German army in the light of Germany's historical develop- 
ment no less than from the philosophical standpoint of 
her qualities as a State. In this manner the prejudice 
of the historian and the utilitarianism of the philosopher 
have to some extent depreciated the pure strategist in 
popular opinion. 
Bernhardi the strategist deserves a better fortune, for 
an examination in the technical chapters of his first 
volume reveals in him a clear and decisive knowledge of 
the details of strategy and tactics and of the organisation 
and preparation of armies for war. A knowledge of 
strategy consists in a knowledge of the hard and fast 
principles of military art, passed down to the leaders of 
the present day by the great captains of past ages. A 
knowledge of organisation and preparation consists in 
a knowledge of the appHcation of these constant principles 
governed by the varying conditions of science and social 
and econornic life. This second knowledge is proprietary 
to the individual writer and differentiates him from his 
forebears, who had to apply the same strategic principles 
when scientific, social, and economic conditions were 
quite different. 
In regarding the political spirit, which must alwav'S 
accompany strategy, Bernhardi is less impartial. He 
no longer marshals his scientific facts in order to deduce 
their logical consequences, but allows his national pre- 
judice to influence his views of other nations ; and here 
his error begins. 
In his discussion of the hypothetical case of a war by 
Germany against the Triple Entente, Bernhardi the 
strategist recognises the numerical superiority of the 
latter ; but he does not lose sight of the fact that numbers 
are not the sole determining factor ; speed of manoeuvre, 
that is to sav mohUitv, is another factor and military 
history tends 'to show that this second factor, is generally 
the more effective of the two. He, therefore, proposes 
to organise the German army in such a way to secure 
the benefits of this factor, so that, though the task may 
be hard, all -the probabilities point to success. But at 
this' point the politician intervenes. Having admitted 
the superior mobility of the German army, he tends to 
exaggerate its importance as against the superiority of 
numbers which the strategist has recognised as being the 
strength of Germany's enemies. 
He agrees that France can put forward as many first- 
line troops as Germany, but notes that her low birth-rate 
and the thoroughness of her recruiting methods put her 
at a disadvantage as regards the replacement of losses in 
the field. English help, too, would not be able to com- 
pensate for this disadvantage, for the British army, 
small as it is, is more or less a resers^e force for the colonial 
troops, and should these troops need their reserves, even 
this small help would fall to the ground. In any case, 
months would pass before Great Britain could become a 
mihtary factor of importance. 
Lastly, Russia, he concedes, possesses considerable 
numbers, but these would be partly held back on the fai 
Eastern and Caucasian frontiers and partly in the in- 
terior of Europt, to anticipate any danger of revolution. 
Further, the Russian moral would not support a pro- 
longed offensive, and would give out before a result 
could be obtained, as was seen in the Russo-Japanese war, 
where peace had to be signed just when the situation was 
becoming favourable to Russia. 
If we combine the views of Bernhardi the strategist 
and Bernhardi the politician, %ve obtain the war-plan 
of the government which declared war on Europe in IQI4, 
in which the superior German mobility was to vanquish 
superior French numbers before Great Britain could 
arrive to supplement their reinforcement ; meanwhile, 
the Russian offensive would waste itself against the well- 
defended eastern frontier and then the victorious 
German army from the West would turn against them 
and the Russian people, broken in moral, would no longer 
support the army. Thus Germany would have accom- 
phshed her historic mission to the world, and would be 
free to effect her mission of civilisation. 
To determine Germany's historic mission, von Bern- 
hardi goes back to the old Teutons, from whose time 
descends the intellectual superiority of the German 
people, and their " noble certitude," to such an extent 
that their importance is considerable, if not absolute, in 
the development of humanity. Considerable — perhaps ; 
but absolute ! At this point Bernhardi pilots us into pure 
and simple pan-Germanism. The prejudice and one- 
sidedness of the historian are revealed at a single glance, 
for he would have us believe that, from the earliest times 
the people of Europe were but a pretence and only the 
Teutons a reality — a reality which to-day transcends 
the rest of the world as the absolute transcends the 
relative. 
" No other people thinks so historically nor has less 
intuition than wo ; no people can so harmoniously combine 
in natural and spontaneous development full moral 
liberty with a practical discipline. Germany has thus 
