February 8, 191 7 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN, LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY,. FEBRUARY 8, 1917 
CONTENTS 
Tlio Insult to Humanity. By Louis Racmackers 
Time for I'rudcnce. (Leader) 
How the Enemv Stands, Bv Hilaire Belloc 
Tlic War Loan 
German t'n'.s«s ilic World. liy .Arthur Polle 
The Soldier who Sings. By Lewis K. Freeman 
Tlje Lieutenant. By Centurion 
Boar Hunting in France. By Geoffrey Ransome 
Young Anzac finds liis Heritage. By A. E. Mack 
Books to Read. Bj^ Lucian Oldershaw 
The (lolden Triangle. By Maurice Leblanc 
Kit and Equipment 
p.\r,E 
I 
4 
,^ 
1 7 
lo 
II 
14 
i.T 
16 
18 
^5 
A TIMIt FOR PRUDENCE 
THE sudden crisis which has arisen in the relations 
between the United States and the belligerent 
powers has, from the military point of view one 
supreme interest. It is that of tonnage. It is 
clear that if things should come to open war between the 
United States and the Central Powers two very im- 
portant additions would be made at once upon our 
side of the balance and against that of the enemy. In 
the first place something like half a million tons of in- 
terned German shipping now in North American harbours 
would be a\-ailable for the supply of the Allies. In the 
second place the building power of the United States 
(which is enormous and, for fast small craft, the special 
weapons against submarines, almost unlimited and 
extremely rapid) would be immediately at the disposal 
of the Alliance. 
If matters remain only in the stage of a diplomatic 
rupture and if the enemy forbear to precipitate affairs 
by causing loss of American life or sinking (without 
warning and search) American vessels, no direct and 
innnediate effect in favour of the Alliance will follow, 
though the moral effect has already been \ery great. It 
puts an end to all talk of an embargo upon the neutral 
export of material and equally puts an end to all talk of 
neutral negotiation. Whether the enenu' intends to 
risk actual war and balance the supposed advantges of 
sinking at sight against the certain disadvantage of 
adding this great mass of shipping and building power 
to the Alliance against him, it is 'idle to discuss. He 
may choose to draw in his horns (as he has over and over 
again in the past after some exhibition of \'iolence) or he 
may have settled upon what he now regards as his iinal 
and only pohcy. 
Meanwhile, it is urgently to be advised that public 
opinion in this country should keep its head. It 
is forgotten in some quarters that the war is not 
merely nor mainly a race between our b'lockade and Ger- 
many's It is much more a race between the slow effect of 
the enemy's submarine and the immoiiately impending 
effect of the Allied superiority by land in the West. Long 
before even the most ruthless and succe-ssful submarine 
action can seriously embarrass the Western Allies the 
great shock in the West will liave taken place, and it 
is upon the result of this that the chief issue of the war 
turns. There is some room for warning, not only against 
sensational writing in the Press, but also against any 
excess of political oratory at this moment. A war 
can only be won, and is best conducted, by soldiers and 
sailors. A certain amount of political speech-making is 
necessary, perhaps, because it is useful to keep the public 
in touch with the campaign, and the public has grown by a 
sort of routine to regard men in certain known political 
])o.sitions as guides to opinion. But there is always a 
danger that an e.xccss of addresses by Parliamentarians 
may produce a crop of imprudent remarks, ■ dangerous 
to that complete homogeneity of the Alliance and that 
resolute attitude towards the foe which is essential to 
this nation in the crisis of its' fate. 
The speech delivered by Mr. Asquith in Scotland was 
a model of what such addresses should be. Impersonal, 
clear and decisive, it contained not a vyord of reproach 
against domestic rival or foreign ally, nor any attempt, 
improper upon the part of a civilian, to estimate a military 
situation save in its broadest lines. LInfortunately, 
this has not been altogether true of other efforts on the 
part of the politicans. It is not true to say, for instance, 
that the enemy was ever our superior in the handling 
of railways. He has been always somewhat our in- 
ferior in this \-ital matter in France as in Italy, from 
the battle of the Marne to the Trentino and from the 
Yser to the Somme. The battle of the Marne was won, 
as Mr. Belloc points out in his article of this week, by 
the swinging of a great body of troops behind the lino 
of the armies parallel to it during the actual progress of 
the fighting, and the consequent springing of a surprise 
upon the German right. Nothing of the sort has 
been effected by the enemy on the rail from the first 
day of the war till now. Our readers will see in the 
same columns how superior was the movement of the 
troops which marked the Yser sector two years ago 
and how much slower the German movement was. The 
swinging of Italian troops from the Isonzo to the Asiago 
plateau last sunnner was a similarly perfect piece of 
modern transport ruining the Prussian plan imposed 
upon Austria in the Trentino. Throughout the war the 
greatest ability of the Western Allies, in spite of their 
disadvantage of exterior lines, has been amply demon- 
strated in this test matter of railways. It is an error 
of fact then to exaggerate the enemy's mechanical 
power, and surely no good purpose can be served at the 
present moment by criticising, even \-aguely, the Allied 
action in the Balkans. 
The prime fact about the Balkans is that the 
all-important occupation of Salonika took place in 
time, and with Salonika occupied the enemy is para- 
lysed in the East. The annoyance and difficulty sur- 
rounding this capital piece of strategy are wholly sub- 
sidiary to its essential and successful purpose And is it 
not luiwise to suggest that the enemy will obtain more 
fa^'ourable terms if he consents to an early peace ; that 
he will be better off by admitting defeat in 1917 than 
by admitting it next year ? Such a statement belies 
the feeUng of -this country and is iri-itating to the 
known temper of our great Allies. The enemy will obtain 
peace in spite of liimself when he has been defeated, 
and when he has been defeated the peace he will obtain 
will be one imposed upon him by the common progrannne 
and the common determination of France, England, 
Italy and Russia. 
He, at least, knows this, and it is a great pity that any 
weakness in the matter should be even suggested ; how- 
ever impossible it may be in face of the public temper 
and of the aimies for those who counsel such weakness to 
achic'.e their ends. It is .as well to speak quite clearly 
upon this point. No yielding will be tolerated by the 
peoples or by the armies, and it is surely imprudent 
to suggest it. 
