January i8, 1917 
LAiND & WATER 
better though longer communications, would be equally 
discoverable, or perhaps even more easily discoverable. 
Surprise, with any normal vigilance upon the Allied side 
is, in the matter of concentration, virtually impossible. 
Further, as I have said above, even the chance of such 
an operation, let alone its imminence, would be condi- 
tioned by the cessation of the main effort in Roumania. 
So long as that effort continues it cannot be supple- 
mented by a large offensive in Macedonia. The enemy 
has neither the men nor the material for two such coin- 
cident operations. 
The Present Political Factor in the War 
The European war has entered a new phase since the 
rejection of Germany's offer foe peace. I say " Germany's 
offer," because, though the pressure came from all the 
Alliance against us indiscriminately, though Austria- 
Hungary is even in a worse case than the German Empire, 
Germany was the spokesman for that mass of 150 millions 
which has been harnessed under Prussia to challenge 
Europe and civilization. 
The phase into which it has now entered is, on the 
enemy's side, almost entirely political. 
The political element as distinguished from the purely 
strategic — by which one does not mean the ultimate 
political aims of a war which dominate all strategy, but 
the immediate striking for political effect upon neutrals 
and civilians which interferes with normal strategy — has 
been present ever since the Battle of the Marne. But it 
has been present in \'arying proportions. 
The lirst great military action after the Marne, the 
belated attempt to reach the Straits of Dover, had a little 
))oHtical element in it. There was the feeling that even if 
the Allied line were not turned by the north, at least a 
coast position would be taken which would embarrass 
Great Britain materially, but much more affect opinion in 
Great Britain. This political element, however, in the great 
Battle of Ypres, towards the end of i()i4, was quite sub- 
sidiary to the strategic element. The enemy, having 
lost all his original plan of campaign against the superior 
strategy of his opponents upon the Marne, and having 
taken such an extraordinarily long time to use his great 
superiority in numbers for action round the left or Northern 
Hank, having allowed the " Seagate " of the Western line 
to be closed against him (why he allowed it, by what 
error he allowed it, has never been explained), had no 
choice but to try and batter in that gate. There had 
as yet been no experience to guide him. No one knew 
how a great offensive would fare against the modern 
defensive, and though history will ridicule Prussian 
strategy for its cumbersome blunder in failing to turn the 
open Allied flank, it will not blame the Prussian effort to 
recover from that blunder by the great attack upon the 
north-eastern sector of Ypres which the French call the 
Battle of the Yser and the English the Battle of Ypres. 
. The attack upon the Russians during the winter was 
again in part political : it was concerned with the re- 
establishment of confidence in Germany by the driving 
of the Russians out of East Prussia. But \vhen the great 
advance of 1915 was undertaken by the Austro-Germans, 
once they had broken the Galician lines and had begun 
the only true pursuit they have enjoj^ed in this war (it 
lasted thirteen days), the political element in their 
military plans was almost eliminated. 
From the ist of May, 1915, to the beginning of October, 
that is for live full months, the enemy's command, now 
united, kept a distinctly military object in view : the 
destruction of the Russian Army. I need not repeat 
again the story of the five great salients and of the failure 
of each, the last and greatest failure, which also came 
nearest to success, being that which takes its name from 
the town of Vilna. 
! With the failure of the Pohsh campaign, the necessity 
for pohtical effect rose again. With the help of Bulgaria 
Serbia was overrun. It was an action which could not 
possibly lead to any military decision. It did not even 
give a base in the Mediterrai|ean. The Allies, by their 
prompt occupation of Salonika, saw to that. But it 
was not wholly political by any means. It greatly 
reinforced the Turkish powers of resistance. It increased 
the enemy hold upon the Adriatic. It prevented 
Bulgaria from breaking away at lier own moment. 
With the opening of 1916 the pohtical element sank 
again to the advantage of the military element, though 
the enemy's plans were now entirely Prussian in 
origin and direction. The great attack upon the sector 
of Verdun was, during all its first furious days, ancl I 
think as late as April gth, 1916 (with regard to which 
date I wrote in . these columns that the Battle of 
Verdun was won) in the main a military conception 
without political afterthought. It was hoped at first 
to break the French front as the Russian front in 
Galicia had been broken more than nine months before. 
Even when that chance was lost it was still hoped 
that some locally crushing defeat could be inflicted upon 
the French, which would exhaust their future powers 
and which would involve the destruction of a really con- 
siderable proportion of their armed forces and material. 
With the failure of this effort the political element entered 
again and all the later battles round Verdun, throughout 
April, May and June, were more and more designed to 
affect the civilian mind at home and abroad. 
We all know how the phrases : " The taking of Ver- 
dun," " The heart of France," " The gradual approach 
to the citadel," and so forth, which had no military 
meaning whatsoever, were made familiar to the reading 
public of botli hemispheres. We all know how in the 
German Press and in the American, blunt manly pro- 
phecies were issued sometimes, giving the exact date on 
which Verdun Mould be " taken." To some extent this 
political propaganda succeeded. I myself met not a few 
Frenchmen who talked of the " resistance of the town of 
Verdun," and who asked whether " the fortress would 
fall." What is more significant, I met very many men 
abroad who, knowing perfectly well that the phrasC was 
meaningless in any military sense, yet believed that it 
had taken such liold ujwn the public imagination that if 
German troops were to enter the town of Verdun, no 
matter how strong the French lines behind the town 
might be, no matter at what heavy cost the Germans 
should enter that town or at what slight expense the 
French should reform their line, the mere news of such an 
entry would affect opinion in a perilous degree. It may 
have been so. At any rate, to a large extent in thia 
country and almost universally in America, this purely 
political point was made the test. 
A Political Blunder 
Oddly enough, this foolery, which looked as though it 
could only be to the profit of the enemy if it spread, 
turned against him. He had told every body that there 
was a " Fortress of Verdun" for all the world like the 
old-fashioned fortresses that were surrounded, summoned, 
sapped up to and made to" fall" with the consequent eli- 
mination of an army therein contained. Therefore getting 
into the town of Verdun became the test of his own success 
or failure. That stupid lie had obtained currency. There- 
fore, his failure to get into the town of Verdun greatly 
exaggerated the public judgment of his defeat. So 
much the better. At any rate, he had immixed a political 
object with his strategy to the increasing chsadvantage 
of the latter, more and more, up to the outbreak of the 
great Allied offensive upon the Somme. 
During the progress of that offensive, that is, during 
the four open months of 1916, from the ist of July 
onwards, the political element in the German plans 
dwindled. A man who can barely parry violent blows 
on his face stops thinking about the figure he cuts before 
the neutral public and its chances of relieving him sooner 
or later. He bends his whole mind to defence ; and this was 
true, not only of the defence on the Somme, but of the 
defence against the victorious Russian pressure during the 
summer in Volhynia and Galicia. Until the autumn of 1916 
the Central Powers were concerned with the enormous 
losses upon the West, and the peril of the two critical 
railway junctions, Baranovitchi and Kovel upon the 
East. The political element in the enemy's plans there- 
fore dwindled. 
But at the close of that fight there occurred something 
exceedingly significant of what the future was to be. 
The enemy began privately to feel for peace. 
We shall not know perhaps during the lifetime of 
anyone who reads this — certainly not for many years — 
exactly what happened. One man can only tell one part of 
the story, one another. But this much is certain : That 
the enemy had already shown by the uutumu of 1916 
