FebiTiary 22, 191 7 
LAND & WATER 
ticnlar tlie authorities of the German Empire, have kept 
the mentaUty of those they govern in a state of security, 
while the AUied Powers upon the whole informing their 
people better (though less copiously) and depending 
much less ui)()n artilicial means, have given the popula- 
tions which they govern a better and therefore a more 
severe view of the great struggle. 
The second fact in this creation of a " mood " is that 
the determination to complete victory is strong on the 
Allied side in peoples and governments alike, and has 
long disappeared upon the enemy's side. 
Let us weigh these two determining things. 
As to the tirst point : 
The power of the enemy to effect the policy just men- 
tioned is connected, of course, with other matters dealt 
with above. The North German would be quite in- 
capable of tenacity in the face of domestic peril. He is 
enthusiastic, sentimental, and his strongest qualities are 
the very opposite of stoical. Of all the Allied Powers 
against him the I'-rench have the longest habit of silence 
and of tenacity. But the German authorities have had 
the great advantage, as we have seen, of keeping the 
war upon alien soil. Witli this as a foimdation they 
have made the mood of the mass upon which they repose 
a mood not only confident of success, but a mood of 
progression and existent success. Roughly speaking, 
by the upper ranks of the bourgeoisie in Germany (and 
including, of course, the mass of squires who arc less 
educated and less intellectually valuable thaii the higher 
bourgeoisie) it is taken for granted that the Central 
Powers have already won and go on winning ; that 
the " resistance " of Britain, F'rance, Italy and Russia 
is a sort of hopeless thing : that the foolish opponent 
lias been offered terms which he has, with characteristic 
further foolishness, rejected, and that it will only be the 
worse for him. 
We must remember that the German authorities have 
behind them in this successful policy of theirs the memory 
of former victories upon which they can play. 
The German under Prussian guidance feels with 
regard to his power by land very much what the Victorian 
Englishman felt with regard to his power by sea. It is a 
certain inheritance, a sort of right ; it is in the nature of 
things, it is indispensable. 
The value of such a mood in war is obvious. It has 
all the value of rigidity in physical affairs. Its draw- 
back is equally obvious. Though rigid it is brittle or, 
to use another metaphor, once the spell is broken, the 
whole scheme on which it dependecl gives way. That 
is one of the reasons which make a true military victory 
essential in the present war. Lacking that Prussia and 
the Germany wM.l> Prussia has organised will remain in 
this mood. 
The advantages 01 the Allied nations, especiallf^ in the 
West, proceeding from their very different mood, are 
less obvious. The French arni}^ and people ever since 
1870 have lived in an attitude of suspense and deter- 
mination, not in an attitude of certain victory. The 
'British, and the Italians until this great campaign had, 
for totally different reasons (the one being a naval 
Power, the other a new Power) no recent experience of 
either military mood upon the Continent. Among the 
Allies the conception of a conquering march to be under- 
taken at a chosen moment had never arisen. The very 
fact that the Allies were independent and acted in- 
dividually forbade the growth of such a conception even 
after war had been forced upon them by the Central 
Powers. The \^ est was in\'aded at the beginning of the 
campaign. The Russians were pu.shed back in i<)r5. 
The Italians did little more than secure their frontiers. 
The British developed with astonishing rapidity a great 
army and maintained their hold of the sea. But no one 
of the fovu- had so much as a toucli of that military 
ambition which grows from recent military success of a 
decisive kind. The Press, the people and even the 
authorities of the various Alhes have always stood in a 
state of expectancy and one may almost say of defence. 
So far then, as this first category is concerned, the 
political advantage is with the enemy. It is undoubtedly 
true that, no matter how produced^^ the certain expecta- 
tion of easy victory and much more the feeling of a cer- 
tain destiny and certitude in arms is a political asset to 
the party enjoying it. 
But note the contrast when we come to the second 
fact : The fixed resolve, to be the victor. 
In this, which is no less a moral fact than groiuid or 
climate is a physical fact, the Allies have had for many 
months jjast and fully maintain to-day, and will main- 
tain to the end, a superiority no less striking than that 
which the enemy has over him in his original confidence, 
nourished as it is by the perpetuation of the war outside 
his own boundaries. The enemy has frankly confessed 
his inabihty to achieve definite victory. He has been 
compelled to that attitude for the first time in Prussian 
history. He has asked for what is, if one looks at history, 
largely an armistice or truce. 
It is the Allies who have refused. 
In the political field as a whole there is no more 
significant feature than this : The great mass of the 
Allied populations would be unable to tell you why they 
refused. Very many of them have for long looked upon 
the war as an even more difficult "task for them than it is. 
But there is no doxibt whatsoever of their reply to the 
advances of the enemy. They are determined upon a 
decisive success. The enemy has openly abandoned his 
hope of the same. He believes indeed that the pro- 
longation of the war will only make things worse for vis, 
but only because both we and he will continue to suffer. 
He believes indeed that he is invincible — but only in the 
sense that he believes his defensive to be invincible. Of 
\ictor\', in his original sense, he has long despaired, and 
he has confessed his despair. 
Such are the three great political or moral considera- 
tions as I see them during this period of preparation 
before the last great shock, and I confess that of thera 
all the most important seems to me the last. 
We have going about as current speech the barbaric 
l)hrase " a will to victory." It is not even English.' I do 
not know of what German phrase it may be a translation. 
But the idea expressed in decent English we all know. 
It is the determination to win. Not to hold out, but to 
win, to have the better of the opponent and to impose 
our good will against his evil one. That fundamental 
spiritual factor is present with us. It is absent in him. 
H. Belloc 
A Good Book on Agriculture 
MR. PROTHERO, Minister for Agricultiuc, con- 
firmed this week one siuaU point which was raised 
liere last week — namelj', the amount of nonsense 
which has been written recently on agricultural 
questions. But there are many in this country who liave 
now awakened to the vital importance of agriculture as the 
basis of national industry, and yet who are confessedly totally 
ignorant of the subject. To such we would commend Ths 
Land and the Empire, just published by Mr. John Murray 
(3s. Cd. nett). The volume consists of three lectures delivereil 
by Mr. Christopher Turnor, as part of the Imperial Studies 
Series inaugurated by Lord Milner. Mr. Turnor, with whose 
writings readers of L.and & Water are familiar, nientions in 
the opening of the first chapter : " Some ten years ago I 
succeeded to estates which were in a very bad financial con- 
tlition. Whether I wished it or not, I was forced to pay nnich 
attention to economy." It is this personal experience which 
compelled a close and practical study of the most scientific 
agriculture of the day, both here and abroad, that gives 
high value to this book and makes it one to be read by all who 
lionestly desire to arrive at a riglit imderstanding of tJie 
problems underlying the subject. There is hardly a big 
question affecting farming which is not lucidly tliough 
briefly explained in these 136 pages. 
Speaking of the neglect of agricultiuc in the past, Mr. Turnot 
writes : " There was no helj) forthcoming from the nation, 
because the nation did not reahse then as it is learning to 
realise now that the land, as the floor-space on which we 
raise food for the people and strong bone and muscle for 
the country and the empire, is our greatest asset." War has 
been necessary to teach us this everlasting truth, and even 
now it is held perhaps only half-heartedly in some quarters. 
But we hear tliat the Prime Minister this v<Ty day will unfold 
a policy which is to raise British agriculture to the position it 
should always have occujiied. Botter education all round is 
one of the most urgent needs and that apjVlies to all classes, 
both those directly interested in it, and tlsc people generally. 
