LAND & WATFR 
Febf 
nary 15, 1917 
considerations would not advif^o. In the case of Bapaumc 
the trick missed lire even with neutrals, and only the 
stupider journalists among the belligerents made the 
reaching or not reaching xjf Bapaume the test of the 
Sonune. The test of the Somme was, of course, not that 
at all, but the proportional i-xhaustion of the two sides 
and the consequent advance towards compelling a retire- 
ment Or even provoking a rupture. But in the case of 
\'crdun the enemy did succeed more or less and, as I have 
had occasion to relate in these cohunns, I think many 
men of good judgment in, France believed it necessary to 
tlefend the mere houses of Verdun because of the political 
impression produced that Verdun was in some way or 
other being defended, like an old-fashioned walled town, 
and that its " fall " would mean some vast unexplained 
strategic consequence or other. Luckily, the sub- 
stitution of this legend for military fact had no evil 
effects, but it might have had. 
One of the corollaries of this German political method 
is that the chances always are in favour of the enemy 
attacking where he can produce another political effect of 
the same sort. I mean he is (on the West) unlikelj', other 
things being equal, to strike out where he would get his 
host military effect unless he can there talk of a " fortress " 
or, at any rate, of some well-known town lying behind the 
sector he strikes at. 
He is therefore using a double-edged weapon, for the 
dcsin? to obtain political effects of this sort may induce 
hjm to act against the better judgment of his military 
mind. I am certain that history will say this of the 
choice of the sector of Verdun. 
Another interesting feature in the account provided 
for neutrals of this affair is the consistent use of what I 
may calbthe "one-division legend." It is parallel to 
many other cast-iron phrases the enem}' authorities use. 
For some reason or other, perhaps nothing more than 
routine, the enemy always represents a single division as 
receiving any shock, largt* or small. For instance, the 
enormous French action in Champagne seventeen months 
ago, when full contact was established over not less than 
fourteen miles of front, and when huge masses of men drove 
against the central ten of these fourteen miles, was at once 
described in the German communiques as " the heroic 
stand made by a sin(.le division of Rhinelanders." Yet 
the number of unwounded prisoners alone taken by the 
F'rench in this action came to something more than twice 
the infantry strength of one German division at the time ! 
It is o-xactly the same with Warlencourt. The account 
from which I am quoting (provided for the benefit of an 
American journalist) tells us that the shock of three Allies 
di\isions with one division in reserve was met (as usual) 
by " a single di\ision of the Guard." The front was 
narrow, and there is no reason why more than one division 
should have been' caught at the very first onset : but that 
the equi\'alent of much more than one division was neces- 
sary to prevent a rupture is as obviously true as it is true 
that more than a pound of flour is necessary for making 
J lbs. of bread. 
What is curious and rather characteristic of these 
]Mopaganda communications made to neutrals by the 
i-ncmy is that one can easily see by reading between the 
lines of the account that the first statement is false, and 
the Bureau from which this sort of thing is issued does 
not seem to take the trouble to cover its tracks. For 
after describing how the centre of the Guard here em- 
})loyed broke upon the fourth attack, just after midnight, 
the narrator goes on to tell us that the hurrying up of 
reserves " saved the situation." No such situation is 
o\-er saved in any other way, and these reserves, whatever 
their numbers may have been, represented the e.xtra force 
—presumably about equal to that of the offensive — 
which restored equilibrium. 
It is a very simple and rather puerile way of alTecting 
opinion, but the enemy apparently believes that it fulfils 
its object. 
Another example of the lack of co-ordination in the 
enemy propaganda I lind in this same article. 
We know now fairly accurately what the total German 
losses were in front of Verdun. At the time the enemy 
stoutly denied our calculation, and represented his losses 
as far less. He was even foolish enough to spread the 
impossible idea that the French defensive in that sector 
had suffered more than the desi^crately massed German 
attacks. Kow in describinij the Somme battle the 
Le Credo du Soldat 
By Emile Cammaekts. 
Je crois en mon pays, 
Je crois en mon clocher, 
Je crois en ce brin d' herbe qui pousse sur mon abri 
Je crois en la jeuncsse, je crois en la beaute. 
Le \cnt qui passe, j' y crois 
Et le nuage au ciel 
Et r oiseau dans les bois 
Et la gloire eterneUe. 1 
Je crois cc que je vois 
Et que la vie est belle, 
Je crois ce que je sens 
Et je mourrai content. 
Je crois cc que je vois, 
Que mon chemin est droit 
Et.que ma cai^se est bonne ct que j'ai pris la Croix. 
Je crois en ma \ie 
Et je crois en ma mort 
Et que, quand tout est dit, 
Dieu reste la plus fort. 
Je crois ce que je vois 
Et ce que je ne vois pas, 
Je crois en la vertu supreme du sacrifice, 
Je crois en ce brin d' herbe qui pousse sur mon abri, 
Je crois en la fierte, 
Je crois en la justice, 
Je crois en mon clocher, 
Jo crois en mon pays. 
(All Rights Reserved.) 
German propaganda bureau, desiring to emphasise a 
supposed British loss up to a particular date (he greatly 
exaggerates that loss) adds at the end of its statement : 
" This almost rivalled our own toll of Verdun. " Observe 
how significant this is and what a light it throws on the 
whole method of enemy statement by which too many 
of our authorities in the past have been deceived — ■ 
particularly as to losses. 
First you have a man telling you in such detail, and 
with such insistence that you believe it to be true, that 
he has only spent upon a particular enterprise say 
£300,000. When he is spinning you this yam his object 
is to minimise his expenditure in your eyes. For in- 
stance, he is perhaps trying to raise some capital and 
wants you to believe that he could undertake a certain 
piece, of work for only £300,000, and in proof of this 
reduces to that figure his expenses upon, say, the erection 
of a factory which you know to have been his work. 
He wants for this commercial reason to make you think 
he only spent £300,000, though he really spent half a 
million. 
Somewhat later the same man is again desirous of 
spreading a false impression. But circumstances have 
changed. He is now talking of the expenditure of a rival. 
He wants, let us saj-, to convince you that this rival is 
wasting his substance, and he says (forgetting what he 
told you some time before) " He must have spent at least 
half a million on that job, nearly as much as I spent 
on putting up my factory." 
We all know how contradictory statements of this 
sort are made by people who bluff, and who forget the 
necessity of co-ordinating one's various bluffs if one 
desires to be believed. The little piece of evidence I 
have just quoted is an excellent example of the way in 
which we test and counter-test German figures. Both 
statements cannot be true. Either in trjnng to em- 
phasise his false and exaggerated estimate of Allies 
losses in the latter case he has let slip a truth with 
rcgaid to his own. losses before Verdun, in which case 
his original statement upon the losses before Verdun 
was false ; or he is, in this latter statement, deliberately 
exaggerating hi& losses before Verdun. But the former 
