LAND & WATER 
January 23. 1917 
right of domination over other mcnit>crs ; defends .uul 
practises actions abominable to the European con- 
science, then Eurojx; has no choice but to elimii^ate the 
{)oi^on. The altcrnati\c is its own ixrnuinent degrada- 
tion and rapid decline. 
But neutrals not only tend just now to forget the moral 
issue or to confuse it. They also — and this is perhaps the 
worst practical featiuc of the situation — tend to believe 
that the victor\- of cither party is now impossible, and 
that the prolongation of tlie war has becovne a mere and 
hideous waste of youth and huinan achievement. The 
causes of this jtidgment arc clear to everyone, because, 
not only neutrals, but the greater part of people, even in 
belligerent countries — have tended in the same direction. 
Indeed, any man, however thoroughlj' he may have 
studied the wars of the }>ast, has such a tendency in 
him the moment he stops the intellectual process and 
yields to an emotion or mood. It i? in realitj' exactly 
the same emotion or mood which makes you say dmnng 
* a night of insomnia that " morning will never come," 
tir tliat some slow jom-ney you are undertaking is " simply 
endless." 'As intelligent statements they are meaningless ; 
as expressions of an emotion they arc natural enough. 
War has .ihvays been and must always be decided by 
the superior power of endurance, in one form or another, 
of one party to it. The only difference between circum- 
stances which produce this despair of a conclusion and 
circumstances which on the contrary produce exaltation 
and confidence, is a difference in scale. Ihc two lines 
in the West, for instance, have faced each other on much 
tlie same ground for now 27 months. Had it been 27 
liours or 27 days the mood of which I sj>eak would not 
have been produced. Twenty-seven months produces 
it — and that is aU one can say upon the matter. If, 
instead of yielding to an emotion you marshal the factors 
of the military situation and handle them with the in- 
tellect, you not only foi^et this mood of stalemate, but 
jrou wonder perhaps how anyone could have fallen into it, 
" Stalemate" 
The factors of the situation are susceptible 01 a 
calculus ; that calculus has elements of uncertainty in 
it and those elements permit of judgment inclining to 
one side or the other. They do not permit of such an 
idea as " stalemate." Here I can imagine the best 
read and the most intelligent neutral observer saying : 
" Other wars have ended in a stalemate ; for instance, 
. the series of wars between the Allies and Louis XIV. 
It certainly looked, two years before the end, as if Louis 
XIV. was going to be decisively beaten. But at the end 
of the two years his situation was sufficiently recovered 
for the result to be called a draw. There are many other 
such examples in history." 
This is perfectly true ; and it is similarly true that this 
war may perfectly well end in a stalemate if the Allies 
are so foolish as to allorw it. We all know that if it did it 
would be but the beginning of a series of wars ; for 
the issues are far too great to be left thvis in suspense for 
more than quite a short time. We all know on this 
side of the Atlantic ^nd no one better than the Eiiropean 
nations still neutra^ that the short intervening period 
between the present disaster and the next would be one 
even more intensely abnormal, more full of necessary 
despotism, regulation and preparation for struggle than 
is the present moment. It has been so and must be so 
with every primal struggle, from the " peace " after the 
first inconclusive Pimic war to the lull after the First 
Crusade, and the Peace of Amiens. But putting this on 
one side it still remains true that the first bout of even 
so gi'cat a war as this might end inconclusively by the 
simple process of those who have victory in their grasp 
foregoing their opportunity. Moreover eveiy war which 
lias ended in a .stalemate has ended so, because the 
Party which was gradually winning chose to stop. 
The Allies in the case of Louis XIV. could certainly 
have crushed the French Monarchy if they had gone 
on. They did not go on because they thought the 
results they had obtained were commensiuatc with 
the efforts they liad made, and because they did 
lot think that further expense wotild be commensurate 
vith further results. They were not out to destroy 
lie French Mon.irchy. They were out for certain definite 
csults, many of them of a small political character, and 
iiii-.^v ill iJic main tliLj .-uliuci,! , iiuiabls, lioUaud. 
But the present war is being fought about some- 
thing much more intimate and fundamental : nothing ' 
more nor less than tlio ancient imity of Europe. And it 
is not conceivable that the group of belligerents which is 
now at last ascendant will forego its victory through 
fatigue, intemal dissension, or misjudgmcnt. 
But here we come to the last and most important part 
of- such a discussion. How do we know, why can we 
certainly say that one party is now clearly winning, 
that victory by all the known factors of the situation 
lies with the Allies ? Because of two things which 
any neutral may test for himself if he will marshal 
the facts and deal with them intellectually instead of 
yielding to a mere mood. 
The enemy had upon both fronts two years ago a vei-y 
great superiority- in men and a still more striking super- 
iority in mnnitionment, preparation and equipment. 
He failed to make good while he possessed that superiority. 
He has lost his superiority in men ; and to-day the con- 
trast between the reserves of man -power that can bo 
established and used within a given time on the two 
sides is very striking, and is very rapidly increasing, 
lie still has, and will continue " to have, probably 
throughout the campaign, a superiority in material upon 
his Eastern Front. He has better observ-ation there than 
his opponent through a larger air service ; he has more 
guns and heavier guns and far more shell, and he can 
sup])ly himself more regularly, and much more quickly 
through the possession of an at least {enfold railway 
power. But on the otlicr hand there is upon that 
1^-astern front a counterbalancing facton, which is space. 
He compelled a great retreat in 1915. He has compelled 
a small one at the end of 1916. Both have the same 
end ; the reaching of a limit beyond which he cannot 
further strain himself and that without any decision. 
^leanwhile his rate of wastage steadily goes on at more 
than three times but less than four times fiis rate of recruit- 
ment. 
Upon the West he is outclassed in every single depart- 
..icnt of war. That sounds a bold thing to say, but it 
is jx-rfectly true. His observation is hopelessly outclassed, 
his pieces are neither so ntmnerous nor their delivery so 
accurate nor their supply of shell so large as those of his 
opponents, and his tactical methods are clearly less 
successful. He has not 3'et achieved and he certainly 
never will, anything like the two great conclusive ex- 
periments of the French in October and December upon 
the Verdun sector. He will not, on the offensive^ in- 
flict losses more than double those whicli he has hims^if 
suffered. On the contrary he will suffer far greater losses 
than he inflicts. He has not the new French tactical 
method, and from the very nature of his army with its 
incapacity for initiative below the commissioned ranks 
and its mechanical distinction between these and the 
mass he is incapable of attaining it. He will hold until 
he retires or breaks. But that there is a limit to his 
Iiolding under existing conditions is as clear as the 
mathematical truth that two lines not parallel and 
lying in the same plane will cross each other. For not 
only is his exhaustion in men and in material far more 
advanced than that of his Western opponents but the 
distance between the two is increasing very rapidly 
indeed. 
I have said " existing conditions." No one can foresee 
the future and we do not know what future factors, 
]X)sitive or negative, will be introduced into the problem. 
\\'hat we do know and what we can each of us discover 
for ourselves by a little examination, is that the factors 
as they now stand weigh more and more heavily in favour 
of our ci\ilisation and against that power which chal- 
lenged it. 
I think it should be added in conclusion that the tone 
of all men's minds, belligerent as well as neutral, is 
very different before a decision from what it is after- 
wards. If history is any guide the moment of a tnie 
military decision is revolutionary in its effect on the 
mind. All the doubts and misjudgments of the present 
phase will not only disappear when our victory is won, 
but men will forget they ever had them ; and it is as well 
that neutrals should hold themselves in readiness for 
this revolution of the mind. 
If one reads the private correspondence proceeding 
during any lengthy campaign of ^hc past, one is always 
