August 3, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
slight slopes of the field in Pioardy. But it is clear that 
the trace of the German 3rd line has been made with this 
same principle in view.* 
We are told in the British despatches that it now runs 
through Martinpuich straight to Flers. . It consisted 
when the offensive began in no more than one continuous 
trench line. The enemy has had a month in which to 
consolidate it. 'It would seem that the next phase of 
• The stronR second line from Pozieres eastward, now wholly in the 
hands of the British, mnst have been much older. It everywhere 
follow.'? a ridge where it can. 
the offensive would consist in the attack upon this 
system. It lies everywhere not quite a mile from and 
in front of the positions now occupied, or perhaps a 
little less in front of the centre at the High \\'oud. 
Space forbids my continuing this week the study on 
the Italian front, on which I have already published the 
first two articles, which I must ]ea\e to a later issue, as 
I must also, to my regret, the description of the verj' 
interesting piece of work the Italians have just accom- 
plished on the Dolomite Road west of Cortina. 
H. Belloc 
The Fate of Captain Fryatt 
By Arthur Pollen 
THE trial of Captain Fryatt, lately in command 
of the Great Eastern Railway Company's 
passenger steamer Brussels, his condemnation 
and immediate execution, combine to give this 
atrocious event a character which distinguishes it from 
all Germany's pre\'ious outrages against the laws and 
conventions that should govern land and sea war. For 
it bears the mark which gives a special immortality to 
historic tragedies. Christian theology, in the classifica- 
tion of sin, .singles out one as heinous beyond compare. 
It is the sin against the Holy Ghost, the truculent and 
deliberate offence against justice and knowledge. Its 
supreme example is the act of injustice perpetrated 
under the sacred forms of justice. Only one human 
life has been sacrificed, but it has been taken in circum- 
stances of infamy that make this hateful murder a 
thing that cries to Heaven for vengeance and to man 
for justice. 
• There are other offences which from their scale and 
the persistence of their, commission, have excited, and 
must continue to excite, a greater horror. There is none 
in which the official representatives of the German 
nation have more deliberately outraged the judgment of 
the Christian world. 
The execution of Nurse Ca\'ell was a horrid cruelty, but 
she may ha\'e been technically guilty of a mihtary offence. 
But the Fryatt case stands alone. It is not that Captain 
Fryatt was tried for an offence of which his judges knew 
that he was not guilty. He was indicted for an act 
which, by the law of his judges — and to their knowledge — 
did not constitute a capital offence at all. Nor is it 
that the merchant captain's right to defend his vessel 
against the warship, is acknowledged by the law of every 
nation whose claim to being civilised is based on their 
acceptance of a code of right and wrong common to .all 
civilised nations. This particular right is adu^jtted by 
German Prize Law, and is insisted upon by^^rman 
authorised commentators on that Law. The text of 
German Prize Law is known to every Admiralty and 
Chancellery in Europe , and it differs materially from ours. 
We should not regard passengers who defended a ship as 
franc-iircurs. But on the main point there is agreement. 
The last form of it — as the Daily Mail reminded us when 
the minder was announced — was issued a bare six 
weeks before the war broke out. There is not the least 
ambiguity in its phrasing. Paragraph 11 of the Appendix 
runs as follows : 
" If an armed enemy merchant vessel offers armed re- 
sistance to the right of visit, search and capture, this is 
to be broken down by all means possible. The enemy 
Government is responsible for any damage thereby caused 
to the ship, cargo and passengers. The crew are to be 
treated as prisoners of war. Tiie passengers are to be 
liberated unless it is proved that they have taken part 
in the resistance. In the latter case they are to be pro- 
ceeded against in accordance with the extraordinary 
martial-law procedure." 
Nothing, it would be observed, could be more explicit. 
There is no point to be made in a distinction between 
a gunned ship using guns, and a ship with no guns using 
her ram. For, during thirty years or more, the navies 
of the world recognised the ram, not only as a weapon 
or an arm, but as indeed the principal weapon of attack. 
The .Editor of the Amsterdam Telegraaf in a letter to 
Tuesday's Times, sends some useful quotations from a 
Manual of Warfare at Sea, written bj^ Dr. Wchbcrg of 
Diisscldorf, apparently an assessor of the Admiralty 
Court and a recognised authority on international law. 
The book was actually published after the war had been 
in progress for more than six months. Mr. Van der 
Velde's quotations are illuminating. Dr. Wehberg dis- 
tinguishes between the rights of neutral and those of the 
enemy merchant men. The first may not, the second 
may resist search and capture by force. A merchantman 
in resisting does not incur the penalties of the franc- 
tireur as does the unarmed civilian who fights on land. 
" Active resistance," he continues, " has no influence on 
the fate of the crew of an enemy merchantman." Both 
the text of the Prize Law and the comment of an au- 
thor'tative interpreter make it thus abundantly clear that 
in this prostitution of law, the German Higher Command 
were deliberately and consciously sinning against light. 
The Formality of Trial 
Why was the murder of Captain Fryatt carried out in 
this particular way ? It would have been easy to cut his 
throat in prison or to ha\'e trumped up some false charge, 
unsuppori^cd by evidence, but carrying with it the penalty 
of death if its truth were assumed. Had a mere revenge 
on Fryatt been the motive, he could have been sacrificed 
without the awful challenge that is involved in the 
tragedy before us. There must then have been ulterior 
objects — and those of immense importance to Germany 
to-day. One possible object was from the first obvious. 
A German na\'al officer is now reported to have given 
expression to it in an interview with a representative 
of tlie Chicago Daily News. The fate of Fryatt is, ac- 
cording to him, a warning to other merchant captains of 
the punishment that awaits them if and when Germany 
resumes a ruthless submarine campaign. Ever since 
the reaction from the announcement of a German victory 
in the North Sea on May .51st — from the realisation, that 
is, that victory is judged by its fruits — when the alleged 
destruction of British sea power was found to bring no 
relief from the sea blockade, the Conservatives, the 
National Liberals, and indeed, all German parties and 
most of their spokesmen in the press, except the Socialists, 
liave clamoured for a resumption of the Tirpitz regime. 
There is no sign that the German Government intends 
to force America to intervene. It is not that the text 
of the German undertaking to America has been kept. 
It manifestly has not been kept. But on the other hand 
the breaches of it ha\e not been of that spectacular kind 
that would be calculated to arouse America into action. 
They could not be recommenced on a grand scale 
without war. The German Higher Command is well 
informed, and knows that the .\mericans, who have soon 
to choose between Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hughes for Presi- 
dent, cannot possibly endorse at' this stage any open 
failure by the executive to make good the threats which 
after formal consultation with the representatives of the 
nation, were delivered to Germany in the middle of 
April last. Washington is now acting under an extra- 
ordinarily lively form of criticism. Mr. Hughes, speaking 
on Mondaj' last in New York, is at pains to show that 
he at least stands unflinchingly for American rights and 
American honour. Brave words have not saved American 
