January 4, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN, LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1917 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
The Resurrection of the Dead. By Louis Raemaekers i 
A War MancEuvre. (Leader) 3 
Verdun and the Somme. By Hilaire Belloc 4 
Sea War of 1916. By Arthur Pollen 8 
The Roumanian Campaign. By Colonel Feylcr 10 
Coal and Iron Fields' of Lorraine. By Henry D. 
Davray ' 12 
A Letter to an American Friend. By Londoner 14 
McTavish on the English Genius. By Joseph Thorp 16 
Books to Read. By Lucian Oldershavv 17 
The Golden Triangle. By Maurice Leblanc 18 
The Wtet End 24 
Kit and Equipment xi. 
A WAR MANCEUVRE 
GERMANY to-day must be pondering the 
words of Bildad the Shuhite : " The hypocrite's 
hope shall perish." For the reply of the ten 
Allied Governments, " united for the defence of 
the freedom of the nations," can leave no illusion that her 
empty and insincere proposal Has failed in its object. 
So far from troubling public opinion and creating dis- 
sension, it has consolidated and hardened the sentiment 
of all the nations that the war must be fought out until 
the Allies are in a position to impose their will upon 
the Central Ivingdoms. Before this happens, obviously 
the Kaiser will have ceased from bombast. In his New 
Year message to his Army and Navy and indirectlj^ to 
the German peoples, he boasts that his forces were in 
1916 " victorious in all theatres of war on land and on 
sea," and adds " In the New Year also victory will remain 
with our banners." This does not represent a frame of 
mind that has any sincere desire for a discontinuance of 
hostilities, except on its own terms. Until events force 
upon German mentality an entirely different attitude, 
all talk of peace is illusory, and if it emanates from the 
enemy, it can only be described as a war manceuvre. 
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (who has 'won his 
baton by splendid service) told us in his soldierly despatch 
issued on Saturday, that " the enemy's power has not 
yet been broken nor is it yet possible to form an estimate 
of the time the war may last before the objects for which 
the Allies are fighting have been attained. Bui the 
Somme battle has placed beyond doubt the ability of the 
Allies to gain those objects." The latter words, here 
italicised, must be steadily borne in mind in regarding all 
peace proposals. In this same despatch the curtain was 
lifted a little way, and we were permitted to behold the 
gigantic organisation which is nowadays a necessary 
prelude to a forward movement. The laying out of a 
great city involves no more complicated works of all 
kinds than the preparation of a modern battle. These 
preparations go forward steadily, and the Germans know- 
it. The German General Staff must recognise plainly 
that the defeat on the Somme is a sign that their 
mihtary power is broken, and that nothing can save them 
from { destruction unless the Allies can [be betrayed into 
weakness and led astray from their fixed resolution to 
secure complete military victory. We may look forward 
during the rest of the winter to constant endeavours. 
many of them astute, cunning and covert, to move the 
Allies from their purpose. The leopard does not change 
his spots, nor the Hun his methods, and we have to be 
on our guard against all suggestions that favour an early 
peace or even a peace conference on Germany's terms. 
The open letter which avc publish to-day addressed to an 
American friend, explains lucidly the cunning manner in 
which Germany imposes the impressions she desires to 
create on neutral minds. We may be sure she will not 
be content with breathing fire and slaughter in Berlin, 
but will contimie the campaign for peace on her own terms 
which she has initiated. No greater success will met her 
later efforts. The Allies are not to be turned from their 
purpose by the secret machinations of the enemy. 
A letter has recently appeared in a London newspaper 
criticising the Allies' reply and stating among other things, 
that " moderate men will ask why it is that we refuse 
to discuss our aims ; whether the neutral world will any 
longer believe that we are fighting for those defensive 
purposes which we put forward at the beginning of the 
war ; and whether the assumption that we can at some 
|future time exact better terms without disproportionate 
sacrifices is justified." The suggestions contained in 
these questions are wholly pernicious. The fact is 
entirely ignored that we are fighting for elementary 
principles on which not only the comity of nations is 
based, but the whole social fabric of civilised mankind. 
It is not a question of exacting better terms from the 
encrrly, but compelling the Prussian to recognise, in the 
future, that there is a higher law than the law of necessity, 
and that a document to which a signature has been 
appended has a value and sanction entirely apart from 
the paper on which it is inscribed. It is no exaggeration 
to say that this point of view involving the death and 
agony of millions of human beings, has shocked the soul 
of all sections of humanity, and if it be allowed to pass 
together with the abominations which were its logical 
result, without penalty or reparation, then the war would 
have been fought in vain and every life hitherto sacrificed 
in it utterly thrown away. 
There is a passage in Isaiah, which runs : " And the 
work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of 
righteousness quietness and assurance for ever." That is 
the righteousness for which the Allied nations have been 
and are fighting, and until it prevails, it is folly to 
talk of peace, for without the victory, there can be 
no quietness or assurance for eyer. Again we repeat 
that we are resolved to destroy, to wipe out the corporate 
tradition and the spiritual organism which has threatened 
us. We are determined to put into the hearts of those 
who had thought themselves our superiors —and who 
indeed still boast themselves our superiors, face the 
Kaiser's New Year's message— a conviction that they are 
our inferiors. It will take time to accomplish, but we 
are nearer its accomplishment than seemed possible a 
3'ear ago. Verdun and the Somme have established the 
inferiority ^of the German Army, both in offence and 
defence. We are confidently assured that complete 
military victory is within our reach if we persevere. 
And that we shall persevere, no one doubts. 
The Allies desire to treat with all respect the suscepti- 
bilities of neutral nations, but they cannot allow them- 
selves to be deflected from their purpose by sentiment. 
This stern quarrel has been fixed on them by wanton 
aggression'; the lesser nations have been s^^oiled and 
the life of the greater nations has been fused an-d moulded 
into the single purpose of war. At this hour when at 
last they realise that the past sacrifices have not been 
in \ain, that The Day— Their Day— will surely [dawn, 
can any reasonable being assume that the Allies -will lend 
an ear to temporising measures, instead of pressing for- 
ward with renewed determination to the victory which 
is already in sight. 
