September 21, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
c'e:llne and it was undertaken against enemies who might 
conceivably be broken if the attack should immediately 
succeed, but who were bound to rise in numbers and in 
munitionment superior to his own if it should fail. Ihe 
Somme was undertaken against an enemy already de- 
clining and by Allies whose total strength in numbers 
would not wane for a long time and whose power of 
munitionment and equipment, especially in heavy artillery, 
was rapidly rising. 
Take another point in contrast. The enemy's succes- 
sive and decreasing belts of advance in front of Verdun 
were, after the rush of the first week, perpetually fluctuat- 
ing. Thus they took and held the whole of Vaux village. 
Then for three weeks lost all the western half of it. 
Then, about a month later, carried it again. There was 
ten days of vacillation in the Crows Wood. The horn 
of Avocourt Wood was lost and re-taken by either side 
four successive times in six weeks. The work of Douau- 
mont itself, quite on the edge of the first rush and corres- 
ponding, therefore, to Flaucourt or Estrees in the Somme 
offensive, was not permanently held by the enemy. ^ It 
was re-taken by the French and then lost again. The 
same was true during no less than ihree months of the 
Caillettc Wood beyond the hollow lane which leads from 
Douaumont down^o Vaux. As for the Work of Thiau- 
mont, it changed hands perhaps half a dozen times in 
more than as many weeks. 
There has been nothing of this upon the Somme. 
Here and there very small points have fluctuated for a 
few days. The country house called " La Maisonette," 
for instance, above Peronne and dominating Biaches, 
was recaptured and held for, I think, 48 hours by 
the enemv, and portions of woods (but small portions) 
upon the British centre and right similarly changed 
hands in periods of a few days each. But the note of the 
whole offensiNC has been that when a forward move was 
attempted it succeeded, occupied its belt, and held what 
it occvipied. 
Here is another point of contrast which the figures we 
have recently read particularly emphasise. The enemy 
has been Compelled to concentrate in less than half the 
time many more effectives on this sector than the French 
were compelled to concentrate in spite of their rapidity 
of rotation upon the Verdun sector. 
The losses of the defensive (estimated only, it is true) 
form a striking contrast. Measured in time they are far 
more than double and nearly treble. The rate of wastage 
is on that scale. 
Lastly, you have the two technical points, the superior 
accuracy of artillery work, and this last wholly novel and 
. successful experiment "of the heavily-armoured cars. 
What would not have been said by those who are 
perpetually underiining the enemy's resource and per- 
petually belittling that of their own countrymen if a 
tactical revolution of this kind had proceeded from the 
plodding and imitative brain of the North German ? 
' Quite as remarkable as, perhaps more remarkable than 
the novelty and originality of this new instrument of war, 
is the excellence of the discipline which has kept it secret 
during all these months. We have been deluged with 
admiration of the enemy's power of springing a surpnse 
even when that surprise had been public talk all over 
Europe for months before it appeared. The puerile 
simplicity of embedding a heavy piece and firing a few 
shots at maximum range against an open town was cried 
up on the few occaisons when the enemy wasted himself 
upon it as though it were something miraculous. Here, 
in the case of the armoured cars, is something in which 
many men were engaged and in respect to which many 
more had sufticient information. Not a word of it 
leaked out to the enemy, and when the instrument 
appeared it was like nothing of which they had them- 
selves attempted a model or of which they could suspect 
the appearance. What have the German and Austrian 
factories done, and what have the German and Austrian 
organisation of secrecy done to equal such a feat as this ? 
There is the series of lessons which the last week has, 
it is to be hoped, taught even those most recalcitrant to 
good news, and to a reasonable pride in the power of 
civilisation against its opponents. 
There' are many other points that could be noted did 
space permit. For instance, the rapidity and exactitude 
of each clutch ; the decline of the ratio of loss as the 
offensive proceeds, and the rise— so far as we can judge— 
of the ratio of loss upon the enemy's side. The curiously 
increasing proportion of officers captured unwounded 
to men. It would be at once ungenerous and unintelli- 
gent to interfSret this last feature in the most obvious 
way and to say that surrender is coming more easilv 
than it did from the commissioned ranks in the enemy's 
army. But whether it be due to a necessity for changed 
leadership in the front line or to the effect of artillery 
domination in forcing the enemy underground, or to 
whatever other cause, it is exceedingly significant. There 
is the growth and affirmation of superiority in air work, 
which has been the strongest visible example of the Allied 
superiority in general, and which is especially due to the 
British corps in particular. 
It is one of the most astonishing, and at the same time, 
one of the most humiliating consequences of a bad poUtical 
system that a triumph of this sort should have been 
misunderstood and actually denied at the very moment 
when the organisation of the Flying Corps was laying 
the foundation of our present success. 
Lastly, not capable of exact measurement or definition 
but very appreciable to all the commands, French, 
British and enemy upon this memorable and perhayjs 
decisive field, is What may be called "the curve of 
moral." It is perfectly clear that confidence and deter- 
imnation are rising upon the offensive side with pro- 
gressive rapidity. . It is equally clear that with less 
rapidity, but in a'manner no less certain, those factors 
are failing upon the side of the defensive. 
The Bulgarian Position 
The Bulgarian position has been treated a little too 
much perhaps as a theatre of war independent and 
secondary'. 
If we examine the thing fully, we shall see that it is not 
independent at all, but closely connected with the general 
problem of the campaign, and indeed vital to the enemy's 
whole position. The Bulgarian operations are minor 
only in the sense that the number of divisions engaged 
is small compared with the grouping of forces elsewhere, 
though it would be very formidable in any other war ; 
but in the sense that their success or failure will be of 
minor effect, the word would be most improperly used. 
The success or failure of, the Bulgarian armies in the next 
few weeks will affect the character of the war for many 
months to come; and will particularly affect the rate of 
the enemy's defeat — surely a capital matter ! 
Why is this ? Is is on account of two great factors 
which, generally apparent though they are, must be 
defined again here. 
The first is the Dardanelles ; the second is the war of 
movement. 
If the Bulgarian commanders have miscalculated and 
permit the Allied forces to meet upon their territory, the 
Turkish armies are isolated from the Central Powers. 
That means the Allied armies can seize the cavntal, 
Constantinople, and the Straits by land. We must not 
be misled by the analogy of three years ago. Three 
years ago no one had dreamt of such a thing as the existing 
development of an intensive bombardment, and no lines 
thrown across the Peninsula at the extremity of which 
Constantinople stands could hold, unless there was 
something like equal munitionment behind them to that 
possessed by their assailants. 
But the munitionment of Turkey depends almost entire- 
ly upon the factories of the Austro-Hungarian and of the 
German Empires— so for that matter does the munition- 
ment of Bulgaria. On this count, therefore, the defeat 
of the Bulgarian armies is vital to the campaign as a 
whole ; for the moment the issue of the Black Sea is in the 
hands of the Allies, the economic position of Russia, and 
what is far more important, the power of rapidly and 
continuously munitioning and arming Russia will be 
changed enormously in our favour. 
The second factor is the War of Movement. 
A true war of movement is still impossible in tlK: ^\'est 
and upon the Italian frontier, and now even upon the 
