November i6, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN, LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1916 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
German Respect for the Flag. By Louis Raemaekers i 
Our Steady Advance. (Leader) 3 
The New Advance. By Hilaire Belloc 4 
Mr. Wilson and the War. By Arthur Pollen 7 
The Union Jack Club (Poem). By Guy Ridley 9 
The PoHsh Recruitment 10 
Guaranteed Price for Wheat. By C. Tumor 11 
The French and Their Allies. By Lewis R. Freeman 13 
A Day on the .Somme. By Centurion 15 
Books to Read. By Lucian Oldershaw 18 
German East Africa. By John A. Jordan 20 
Her Dead. By Marie Louise van Saanen 22 
The West End 26 
Town and Country xvi 
Kit and Equipment xix 
OUR STEADY ADVANCE 
THE continuous success which has marked the 
Somme Offensive since its inception in the 
summer was again of an emphatic character this 
week when Sir Douglas Haig moved against the 
Beaucourt Salient and penetrated the German defences 
on a front of nearly five miles, inflicting severe losses on 
. the enemy, carrying works which had been regarded by 
. them as impregnable, and making large captures of un- 
wounded prisoners. The in\portance of this victory 
;must be judged by the fact that Germany was comforting 
herself in the belief that the lull due to bad weather and 
mud implied, that the Allies' forward movement had 
spent itself. She has reaHsed her error, and has also 
learnt that the recent strengthening of her lines before 
Bapaume and Peronne is powerless to stop ' the slow 
but persistent inflow of the British and French armies. 
Writing in Land & Water last July, a few days after 
the Somme Offensive had begun, Mr. Belloc pointed out 
that " we must not judge it in terms of territory or in 
miles of advance." The object was to pin the enemy 
to his lines, to compel his concentration at whatever 
point seemed best to the Allied Command, and to punish 
him constantly and severely. In all these objects we 
have succeeded. We have in front of us the best of his 
troops ; he has been compelled to reinforce heavily his 
artillery and his aircraft, and his urgent need for more 
and more reserves is best judged by the cold brutality of 
the slave-raids in Belgium and the occupied districts of 
France. All this is the achievement of the fighting on 
the Somme which, wea:ther permitting, continues as 
vigorously at this stage as when it first began, and which 
will continue. It has been consistently stated in these 
columns that though the point where the actual decision 
may fall remains uncertain, the whole character of the 
war is fixed by the superiority of the AUies in the West. 
" We trust that this briUiant achievement," wrote the 
Times on Tuesday, " will silence the pessimism in writing 
and talk which has been prevalent in some quarters." 
Our contemporary continues : — 
None of it is justified, and while some of it must be attri- 
buted to petty personal intrigue, more perliaps is due 
to the inordinate vanity of certain talkers and writers. 
These persons, whose acquaintance with mihtary affairs 
is at best the knowledge of amateurs and of theorists, 
seem to fancy that they are greater masters of strategy 
than our highly trained professional soldiers. If the 
authors are known and discredited. But it derives some 
semblance of plausibility from the fanciful schemes of 
armchair Napoleons who advocate the flinging of vast 
armies anywhere and everywhere except on the one front 
where the pick of the German army are being slowly but 
surely driven to their knees. 
It is impossible to improve upon these words. They 
represent the exact truth of the present position, and it 
is a pleasure to cite them in this journal, where pessimism 
has never been allowed a place. 
But the brilliancy of this new advance must not deceive 
any with regard to the long road we have still to travel 
before the dawn of victory appears. The night is not yet 
far spent ; though the powers of darkness have ceased to 
terrify. We have learnt the magnitude of the task 
before us. Only a ^veek ago to-day the Prime Minister 
said at the Guildhall : " I will not disguise from you 
for a moment my conviction that the struggle will tax 
all our resources and our whole stock of patience and 
resolve." It is a conviction shared by all with any know- 
ledge of the factors concerned. Germany at this hour is 
reorganising the whole nation ; she no longer strives to 
conceal from her people that the victory of her dreams 
has vanished for ever ; she now rallies them with the 
delusion that an inconclusive peace is possible, which 
even if it deprives her of the spoils of war, will at least 
keep the foot of the invader off German soil. Her 
powers of organisation and her resourceful ability have 
been stupendous, and it were foolishness to underrate the 
effect of this new national movement. 
It. is our duty to develop equal resourcefulness and 
foresight, and to be prepared for any eventuahty. Every 
member of the Government must reahse by this time 
that any measure will be accepted which has for its 
object the final winning of that peace which Mr. Asquith 
defined in his Guildhall speech — a peace "which must 
be such as will build upon a sure and stable founda- 
tion the security of the weak, the liberties of Europe, 
and a free future for the world. ' ' As regards food supplies 
it would, we believe, be found, were an inquiry made, 
that already a great deal has been done in private house- 
holds in effecting the economy which is now needful for 
national reasons. The Cabinet from the very beginning 
of the war realised its duty in this respect, but it is a 
matter for regret that it did not take a more far-seeing 
attitude towards British agriculture and by the adoption 
of prudent measures encourage , farmers to increase 
greatly the produce of their fields. Here the Government 
has allowed itself to be guided by a tradirion which 
regards British agriculture not as the greatest but as the 
least of our staple industries. Like all traditions it has a 
clinging habit, but it has to be utteriy rooted out, not only 
for the winning of the war, but for the well-being of the 
nation in times to come. Were only the British Islands 
practically self-supporting— and there is no reason why 
they should not be made so— our future security would be 
multiplied tenfold. 
The splendid achievements of the Allied armies in the 
field are admirable encouragement to us at home to put 
forth our best efforts to make adequate preparation for 
whatever the future may hold. We are now in that 
third year of war which seemed prepo.sterous when Lord 
Kitchener first predicted it. Whether the war lasts for 
three years or for four or five years, we are resolved to go 
through with it, wherefore we shall do well to learn from 
the enemy to husband our resources aind organise our 
man-power before the strain becomes more severe. Much 
we admit has been done in this direction but more is 
needful to enable us to view the future with equal 
confidence at home and on the Continent. The better and 
rnore complete our economic organisation, the more hope- 
less will the future appear to the enemy who already 
recognises that the old resolute spirit of a ccnturv nm-i 
