February 22, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
13 
the fact that pubUcation of every other ship lost is to be 
expected, has given our enemy exactly the information 
wanted for making good a broken Hnk in his chain. Take 
the case a little further. Supposing U^o and L'51 have 
been sunk in the North Sea before they have got 100 
miles from the German coast. The Germans Would 
never find this out unless the pubHcation of British 
casualties here gradually convinced them that there 
was nothing doing in the area to which these two boats 
had been despatched. And in the absence, of information 
they would have to wait for the normal date of these 
boats' return before makihg good the loss. Now if we 
postpone the publication of all casualties, either for a 
month, or if. it is thought safer, for six weeks or two 
months, then the whole German system of keeping the 
blockade eiticient by supplying substitutes for each boat 
likely to be destroyed must necessarily fall to the ground. 
The importance of this to us is enormous at a time when 
our prospects of destroying large numbers of these boats 
are at their highest. The question is, would the public 
stand this suppression of news ? No doubt some 
journahsts would be robbed of part of their occupation. 
The compiler of these columns would incidentally be 
deprived of almost the only n,ews on which he has to 
comment from week to week. But awful (!) as these 
sacrifices are, it does really seem as if, even were only 
one ship saved by this measure, it would be worth 
adopting. 
I pointed out last week that the ruthless submarine 
campaign had verified the forecasts of those who had 
made the close study of it, not only in its failure to get 
a very remarkable number of ships, but by its success 
in taking a very remarkable number of lives. It is a 
gruesome but tragic truth, which ought to dispose the- 
civilian element to be] ungrudging when it is invited to 
give up things to which it is attached. If we have to 
accustom ourselves to shorter rations of food and drink 
and luxuries of which we are fond, if we have to contain 
our souls in ignorant patience while news is kept from 
us, should we not be braced to this self-denial by the 
knowledge that nearly all the food and many of the 
luxuries that we enjoy a.re purchased for us now, not by 
money and by labour, but with the blood and lives of 
the most gallant of our fellow subjects ? I cannot beheve 
that there would be any serious popular objection to the 
suppression of news, if it were known that by such sup- 
pression some of our ships and some of our sailors could 
be saved. Arthur Pollen 
Mr. Pollen has bsen invited to lecture to the troops 
in France, and it may not b: possible for him to deal 
ivith current naval events in the next two issues 
Will Switzerland be Invaded ? 
By Colonel Feyler 
THE offensive of the Central Empires in Roumania 
has been suspended, and if it were to be re- 
sumed it could not result in a definite decision. 
The Imperial (iovernment is so well aware of that 
fact that it did not even wait to drive it further home 
before trying the maneeuvre of peace negotiations. 
Now that'these ha\-e proved abortive the question has been 
raised in a good many mihtary circles — at any rate in 
France and Italy, audit has been echoed in the British 
press— whether the Imperial Headquarter Staff was not 
about to return to the Western Front and whether, 
since the battle of Verdun has demonstrated the im- 
possibility of a frontal attack, it might not try an en- 
circling movement by passing through Swiss territory. 
For several weeks such an operation has been regarded 
as certain by a very large number of the public, and even 
now, when (iermany is concentrating her energy on the 
submarine campaign, a land enterprise directed "towards 
an attacft on Belfort from the south with t"he object of 
destroying the eastern fortified rampart of France, is 
considered to be by no means ruled out of the possibilities. 
The question is an interesting one to study, and a 
number of military writers have been discussing it 
lately. The territory of Switzerland has played an im- 
portant part in strategy from the very beginning of 
hostilities by protecting with its neutrality the flank of 
the opposed armies. In the German offensive of 1914, 
It served as a pi\otal support for the great movement of 
the armies which were to envelop France through Belgium; 
A few weejvs later it covered the counter-offensive of the 
Allies on the Marne, compelling the Germans to make a 
frontal attack before the Grand Couronne of Nancy. 
Since then it has been an equal protection against flank 
attacks to the operations of both the belligerents. It is 
worth while to ask whether the Germans would gain any 
advantage by modifying the present situation and in 
eluding the territory of the Swiss Confederation as a new 
square in the chess-board of the war. 
A Point of Difference 
Before approaching this subject I would interpolate a 
parentliesis. The German press, defending the Imperial 
Government against the allegation of entertaining evil 
designs upon Switzerland, has felt it incumbent to put 
Switzerland on her guard against an offen.ive contem- 
plated by the Allies themselves to turn the Alsatian front 
and the Black Forest and invade Germany through the 
Upper Rhine. ^ "" 
The Swiss merely shrugged their shoulders. In con- 
sidering any strategical operation over Swiss territory 
the Allies and the Central Empires cannot be regarded 
as being on the same footing. It would be ^against all 
logic because in its successive stages a war is always more 
or less linked up with its beginnings, by which I mean the 
primary intentions and the ultimate objects of those who 
are waging it. Now in this respect there is a great differ- 
ence between the Germanic States and those of the 
Quadruple Entente. 
The Central Empires began the war with the object of 
establishing a powerful organisation of German dominance 
in Europe, and they have used all the means which they 
thought would accomplish this : occupation of the 
coasts opposite the co-existing' naval power of Eng- 
land ; capture of strong fortress positions to serve both 
for defence and offence on the front of the Slav peoples ; 
opening up roads to the Mediterranean and to the 
Eastern Seas. Having done that much they explained 
to their adversaries, rather ingenuously perhaps, that 
they had achieved their object and therefore they offered 
peace. 
Now that their adversaries have refused peace and 
the war is still going on, it would not be surprising if the 
Central Empires were to continue to use the methods which 
they think have contributed to their military purpose, 
methods unrestrained by any scruples whatever. Ger- 
man warfare never handicaps itself by anything which 
might entail difficulty in the employment of military forces. 
Consequently, if German Generals thought that Switzer- 
land did present such a difficulty they would not treat 
her with any more consideration than Luxemburg and 
Belgium. Their ultimate object is the only thing they 
consider, and the methods to attain it. The ultimate 
object of military domination over peoples freely makes 
use of those methods available by force. 
The warfare of the Allies proclaims an intention 
diametrically opposed to that of the Central Empires. 
Its object is the equality of nations, based upon their 
right to control their own destiny. In Mr. Wilson's 
w6rds, it may be said that its purpose is to create a 
Europe which recognises and accepts the principle that 
Governments derive their power from the consent of the 
governed, and where the peoples cannot be handed over 
from potentate to potentate as if they were mere 
chattels. 
Opposite objects involve opposite methods. It is 
natural that a German war made to violate the rights of 
nations .should not hesitate to employ methods which 
