Juno 14, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
front, acted against the Arabs, and part of them were also 
]jerhaps organised as a local reserve for all these operations. 
But it would seem that the position even as long ago as last 
autumn of these remaining eight divisions was more obscure 
tlian that of the rest, as is only natural considering the much 
greater difficulty of identification. 
We have seen in what proportion these details were distri- 
buted for the task as it stood before the Russian Revolution. 
Nearly half were held by the Russians in Armenia and, 
counting reserves much more than half. 
We must repeat that the whole problem turns upon the 
power the enemy may now have in this field of withdrawing 
troops from Armenia, and the further power he may have of 
using his reserve. If we had more information of the character 
and real strength of that reserve and of the true situation on the 
Armenian front, we should have more power to solve the 
]jroblem of a possible counter-attack. As it is we may say that 
he lias on paper the power of at least doubling, and probably 
more than doubling his striking force either upon the Mesopo- 
tamian or upon the Palestine front. 
The value of striking on the Palestine . front is not very 
apparent. He is there holding good territory with an un- 
broken hne of supply behind him. He has in front of him the 
desert on the fringes of which his opponent still stands, 
supplied with a great expense of mechanical appliance. 
With the Mesopotamian front it is otherwise. If, as we 
are told, he was operating there with only live divisions, the 
three which were beaten back by the British at the advance on 
Bagdad, and the two which successfully effected their retreat 
from Persia, it is clear that this comparatively small force 
could be largely augmented with profit. Further, if he can 
withdraw divisions from the Armenian front, the distance 
these divisions would have to go to join the Mesopotamian 
Army Group is not very great, though all the communications 
are by bad roads and most of them over mountains. It is 
equally clear that a successful operation upon this front 
would yield more fruit politically than upon any other. 
H. BELLOC 
Germany's Lost Opportunity 
By Arthur Pollen 
TAKE it for all in all, the most remarkable thing 
about the naval war is that it took the Germans 
by surprise. They had planned the most perfect 
thing imaginable in the way of a scheme for the 
conquest of all Europe. It had but one flaw. They left 
England out of their calculations — left us out, that is to say, 
not as ulterior victims, but as jjrobable and immediate com- 
batants. We were omitted because Germany assumed that 
we'shoidd either be too proud, too rich, too frightened, or too 
unready to fight. Sathat, of all the contingencies that could 
be foreseen, a sea war with Great Britain was the one for which 
almost no preparations had been made. Hence to undo 
Germany utterly at sea proved to be very simple. 
Mucii has been made of this statesman or that admiral 
having actually issued the mandate that kept the Grand 
Fleet mobilised and got it to its war stations two days before 
war was declared. But there is here no field for flattery, and 
no scope for prai.se, and the historical interest in identifying 
the actual agent is slender. It has always been a part of 
the British defensive theory that the main Fleet shall be 
ever ready for instant war orders. Of the fact of its being 
the plan, we need no further testimony than Mr. Churchill's 
first Memorandum after his elevation to the control of British 
naval policy and of the British Fleet. The thing, therefore, 
that was done was the mere mechanical discharging of a 
standing order. 
Once the Fleet was mobilised and at its war stations, 
German sea power perished off the outer seas as effectually 
as if every .surface ship had been incontinently sunk. There 
was not a day's delay in our using the Channel exactly as if 
no enemy were afloat. Within an hour of the declaration of 
war being known no German ship abroad cleared for a German 
port, nor did any ship in a German port clear for the open 
sea. Tlie defeat was suffered without a blow being offered 
in defence, and, for the purposes of trade and transport, it 
was as instantaneous as it was final. 
Nor was it our strength, nor sheer terror of our strength, 
tliat made the enemy impotent. He was confounded as much 
by surprise as he was by superior power. In point of fact, 
the disparity between the main forces of the two Powers 
m the North Sea, though considerable, wa> not such as to 
liave made Germany despair of an initial victory — and that 
l)ossibly decisive — had she been free to choose her own 
method of making war on us, and had she chosen her time 
wisely. In August 1914, three of our battle cruisers were in 
theMeditcrranean, one was in the Pacific, one was in dockj'ard 
hands. Only one German ship of the first importance was 
absent from Kiel. In modem battleships commissioned and 
at sea, the German High Seas Fleet consisted of at least two 
Konigs, five Kaisers, four Helgolands, and four Westfalens. 
Ail except the Westfalens were armed with 12.2 guns — 
weapons that fire a heavier shell than the British 12-inch. 
The Westfalens wer)^ armed with ii-inch guns. They could, 
then, have brought into action a broadside fire of no 12-inch 
guns and 40 ii-inch. Germany had besides four battle 
cruisers, less heavily armed than our ships of the same class, 
quite as fast as our older battle cniisers and much more 
securely armoured. So that if protection — as so many seem 
to think — is the one essential quality in a fighting ship, they 
were more suited to take their share in a fleet action than our 
baft le-cruiseis could have been expected to be. 
On our side we had twenty battleships and-four armoured 
croisers. In modern capital ships, then, we possessed but 
twontv-fonr to nim^teen- n porcentaijf of superioritv of only 
ju.st over 25 per cent., and less than that for action purposes 
if the principle alluded to holds good. It was a margin far 
lower than the public realised. It certainly was not a margin 
that made inglorious inactivity compulsory to an enemy, 
had he been resourceful, enterprising, and willing to risk all 
in the attack. 
If the German Government had realised from the start that 
in no war that threatened the balance of power in Europe 
could we remain either indifferent or, what is far more im- 
portant, inactive spectators, then they would have realised 
something else as well, something that was, in point of fact, 
realised the moment Germany began her self-imposed — but 
now impossible — task of conquering France and Russia. 
For the gigantic nature of her error stood at once exposed. 
She would have realised, as then she did, that if Great Britain 
came into the war her intervention would be decisive. It 
would have to be so for very obvious reasons. With France 
and Russia assured of the economic and financial support 
of the greatest economic and financial Power in Europe, 
Germany's immediate opponents would have staying 
power : time, that is to say, would be against their would-be 
conquerors. The intervention of England, then, would make 
an ultimate German victory impossible. Everything would 
therefore turn on an immediate conquest of France. In a long 
\var staying power would make the population of the British 
Empire a source from which armies could be drawn. Eng- 
land, beginning by being the greatest sea Power in the world, 
would necessarily end in becoming one of the greatest mihtary 
Powers as well. The two things by themselves must have 
spelled military defeat for Germany. Nor again was this all. 
For while sea power, and the financial strength which goes 
with sustained trade and credit, could add indefinitely to the 
fighting capacity and endurance of Russia and France, sea 
power and siege were bound, if resolutely used, to sap the 
fighting power and endurance of the Central Powers. 
To the least prophetic of statesmen— just as to the least 
instructed students of mihtary history — the situation would 
have been plain. And there could be but one lesson to be 
drawn from it. To risk everything on a quick victory over 
France or Russia was insanity. If the conquest of Europe 
could not be undertaken with Great Britain an opponent, 
the alternative was simple. Either the -conquest of Great 
Britain must precede it or the conquest^of the world be i^ost- 
poned to the Greek Kalends. 
Was the conquest of Great Britain a thing so unattainable 
that it liad only to be considered to be discarded as visionary ? 
No doubt, had we been warned and upon oiu^ guard, ready to 
defend ourselves before Germany was ready to strike, then 
certainly any such scheme must have been doomed to failure. 
But I am not so sure that a successful attack would have been 
beyond the resources of those who planned the great European 
war, had they, from the first, grasped the elementary truth 
that it was necessary to their larger scheme. For to win 
the conquest of Europe it would not be necessary to crush 
England finally and altogether. All that was required was to 
prevent her interference for, say, six montlis, and this, it 
really seems, was far from being a thing beyond the enemy's 
capacity to achieve. 
The essentials of the attack are easy enough to tabulate. 
First, Germany would have to concentrate in the North Sea 
the largest force of capital sliips that it was possible to equipj 
Her own force I have already enumerated. Had Gennany 
contemplated war on Great Britain she wonld, of course, not 
liave sent fiie (ioeben awav to the Straits. The nucleus of the 
