LAND & WATER 
Juno 2T, 1917 
is prerififly tiiat idea. Xo scheme- which leaves power-r- 
espt'cially ('conomic j.K>\ver — in the hands of the populace, has 
■anv mean ng to the Prussian mind. It conceives of the mass 
, as a herd — to be kept efficient, ordered, trained to work for 
masters. And the Prussian herd agrees. Well, in the 
strictest sense of the term that idea means servitude. It 
means, using the words in their most accurate sense, without 
rhetoric and without violence, the return of slavery in Europe". 
The thing is so great, the two spirits engaged so over- 
shadow all mankind that one hesitates to write it thus in an 
epiieineral article lest we should seem to be debating too lightly 
tilings upon which the future of mankind must turn. 
That is the truth. If Prussia conies out of tiiis war un- 
conquered, slavery will re-arise in Europe. 
The jiower of the people to order their lives, the power of 
acting from below, the renascence of human dignity in tlie 
mass, is lost. Of sucii magnitude is this war. Upon such a 
scale is the business upon whicli we all in our various capacities 
are engaged. And those who continue to thitik of this war in 
terms of the old diplomacy, of arrangement for this and for 
that, of whether this decayed family or that shall nominally 
wear a Crown and the rest of it, are like children playing with 
toys when there is mortal illness in the house. Take care. We 
are within the ne.\t few months to decide whether all that we 
have knowTi as Europe and all that we have known as England 
is to continue or no, and if the siege is not prosecuted to its 
full conclasion and if complete victory is not attained, we 
have lost. 
Effects of the Battle : Wytschaete Ridge 
Xow that we liavo more details of what happened during 
and after the defeat of the enemy a fortnight ago. two things 
bfcome clearer than ever. First, this, the most successful 
operation of the British army, contained a large elemtnt of 
surprise. Secondly, the blow was of cpiite exceptional 
severity. 
The two points are, of course, closely connected. 
The blow wt>uld not have been what it was had not the 
element of surprise been present. The fact that it was 
present is proved upon several pieces of evidence. Thus, the 
3rd Bavarian division was caught in actual process of relieving 
its colleagues. These unfortunate troops were thrown into 
action, broken and their remnant taken out of the battle all 
within .;6 hours. Another proof of the element of siuprise 
i-i the inability of the enemy to re-act. We know from (locu- 
mentary evidence that he had especially i)repared a powerful 
counter-attack, which must have Ikh-u designed for use a littU^ 
Later than the moment when the blow actually fell. His 
idea certainly was to hold the ridge against the hrs.t 
assault, which perhaps ho expected on the t*th or qtii, 
and then to throw into the battle fresh troops which 
would save the position. Even if we had not evidence 
on these points, it is incredible that he could have acted 
otherwise. The Wytschaete Ridge is of more importance 
to him than any other part of this line. The sentence 
sounds strong, but I beHeve it to be accurate. He cannot 
retire without pivoting on Lille, and the plain north of 
Lille is dominated by the ridge. To hold Lille he must hold 
the line of Lys, and the bridgeheads on the north of that river. 
These bridgeheails you see quite clearly from Messinesto long 
past Gimmmesand alldown the little river for ten miles. The 
screen to all that vital line was the ridge, and the enemy quite 
certainly meant to keep it. 
Furtlier. the position just behind the ridge was and is 
awkward. There is a triangle between the canal and the Lys 
in the plain below wiiich can only be supplied by bridges 
across the two waterways, and this ugly corner is directly looked 
down upon from Messines. The enemy can remain in that 
rorner if he likes and suffer very heavy losses as the price 
of remaining there, or he can fight a rearguard action as it were 
to cover his retiremeait from it, but in neither case does he 
escape without quite-disproportionate losses. He must before 
the battle have known how important it was not to have a 
force cooped up between the canal and the river. And even 
after he lost the battle he made very vigorous effort to prevent 
further advance jjy the British upon this, the left of his line. 
He has not lieen successful. Three days after the battle the 
British carried La Poterie and later the N-illage of Gapaard 
to the north. 
It is very dffficult for readers at home to represent to 
themselves the total effect of such a victory as this. They 
have for their principal elements of calculation, even when 
they are fairly close to the campaign, little more than the 
movement on the niaj) the numbers of jvrisoners and the 
guns. 
But those are not the chief elements. The one great 
fact aboiit a bi'ow of this sort is its effect as an im]>act, and 
if you add to that the possession of observation by such a 
success you get a very large result indeed. 
Tabulate w.'.iat the German Higher Command now knows 
about the reverse. It knows that the British reached without 
a check every objective laid down before the battle. 
It knows that reaction was impossible, for very nearly 
two days. 
It knows that it lost numerically three men to the British 
one. • 
It know.s--that it has lost the screen that covered the plain 
of Lys, and. most important of all, it knows'that it has lost 
all this upon a clear challenge and with a definite issue before 
it. It knows tha t its own communiques in the Press about an 
attempt to " bn;ak throutih " are nonsense. The two forces 
opposed had eac b a. perfectly clear, a glaringly obvious task. 
It was the business of the Germans to hold the ridge, to main 
tain their power of obser\'ation. to forbid any menace against 
Lille by the northem flank. The test was whether they would or 
would not remain in possession of the ruins of Messines and 
Whitesheet or be diiven back to the plain. The BritLsh object 
was to seize the ridge and drive them back to the plain. The 
(iermans failed in their task and the British succeeded in 
theirs. Though the operation was local, and conducted 
upon a front of, say, six divisions only, it was the most com- 
plete thing of its kind which has happened in the West since 
the siege warfare began. 
A blow of this kind has a certain moral effect also whidi 
must not be overlooked. When >'ou have a perfectly <lear 
issue, " I challenge y<)u. I will try to do this, and you will 
try and prevent me." When there is ample warning of the 
ordeal— the preliminary bombardment <ov<>red many days 
and was longer than any <ither in the record of, the war — 
when on the top of all that you fail it means that you will 
fail under the same con<liti()ns, and that a definite su]>eriorily 
of your opponent over yourselves is established. 
Everybody knows what that means in any form of com- 
petition when organised human efforts are pitted one against 
the other. It means that the future is lost. 
There were in this business no ambiguous elements. If 
the enemy could- not hold Whitesheet Ridge he will not 
succeed in any other similar challenge upon a direct isstie. 
The war as a whole will be built up in the future of many such 
things. The capture of the ridge is but one of what may have 
to be a gi"eat number of similar blows, but the point is that 
the blow can i>ow be certainly determined and that superiority 
is definitely established. 
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of tlie delay 
imposed upon the enemy before he could get forces 
together for his counter-attack. The British infantry went 
out of the trenches at dawn upon June 7th. In the first 
part of the day they had the summit in their hands. There 
was no reaction. The afternoon came and a second and 
di.stinct operation advanced their positions down the slope 
eastward. It began, I believe at a quarter past four on June 
7th. There was no reaction. All that evening and through- 
out the night the consohdation of the position gained was 
established. The artillery fire of the enemy was naturally 
severe, but no infantry work interrupted the es.sential task 
of digging the new trenches. It is conceivable that the 
British Command expected the strangely delayed counter- 
attack during the morning of the 8th. It did not come. 
The whole day passed, adding with every hour to the security 
of the British gains. It was not till sunset of the 8th that 
the enemy's fresh forces arrived and were able to assault. 
Altogether 40 hours passed— 40 hours of extreme import- 
ance to the enemy during which he had proved unable to 
strike out. At last when the great assault came it filled the 
twilight of the 8th and the short hours of darkness, but by 
midnight it w'as completely broken. 
That time-table is of the highest significance. Never 
before since the victory of the Mamc drove them to ground 
and established siege conditions, has the power to react on the 
]>aTt of the Germans been so straitened. 
The length of the struggle has had upon our minds effects 
which have been discussed to weariness in these columns, and 
which need not be repeated here. But anyone who will have 
the wisdom to sur\'ey even this single point of the 40 hours 
of incapacity following upon the launching of the blow will 
understand what the exhaustion of the enemy now means. 
Ho knows it well enough and anyone indulging in the mourn- 
ful luxury of woe in the presence of such an event has himself 
to blame for the mood that follows that indulgence. 
It is a suggestion worth considering that when the history 
of the war comes to be written, the work done by the second 
army between June 7th and the 14th, will stand out as one of 
the half-dozen cardinal points upon which the campaign has 
turned. H. BEi.r.oc 
