July 19, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
intent. Our naval gunnery instructions state that destructive 
criticism that is born in officers' messes will soon spread through 
the ship and completely kill the ship spirit. 
It was predicted at the time that Admiral Sims was estab" 
lishing a reliable doctrine for the Torpedo Flotilla under 
his command that his policy would tend to create a new era 
of thought throughout the American service. His steps 
were taken in accordance with the precepts of the Naval 
War College. Sims agreed that of all the great captains of 
history Nelson was the leader whose precepts should be most 
followed. Nelson was personally nearest the hearts of his 
followers and his success was the greatest. The lesson 
Nelson taught was co-operation. Ahead of his day, Nelson 
saw that the leader is not apart frojn his people, but a 
part of them. He saw that if a plan is understood and the 
orders obeyed, it is not because the commander exercises 
authority, but because his comrades in arms talk to him, 
understand him and his purpose, and because initiative on 
their part to further the general plan, is better than bUnd 
and unintelligent obedience. 
Never once has Admiral Sims believed that there could be 
other than one outcome of the war. The British sea power 
must win in the end. With the German Fleet in port or 
behind minefields, where it is perfectly safe from attack, 
and the British Fleet more than half the time at sea, and the 
thousands of ships on all oceans, the German chance for 
aggresiveness is without limit and the British small. 
In planning the tactics and strategy of the American 
part in the war, Admiral Sims is working in England with 
friends. He has known Admiral Jellicoe for years. The 
big men in the British Admiralty are his personal friends. 
The British Navy I know thinks highly of him. 
Dangers of a German Peace 
By Albert Milhaud 
M. Albert Milhaud, the writer of this plain-spoken article, 
is one of the most eminent Professors of the University 
of Paris. A historian, he has made a study of the diplo- 
matic history of Europe, and for several years has been 
commenting on the politics of Europe in his contributions 
to the Paris journal, "Le Rappel." He belongs to that dis- 
tinguished band from the Ecole Normals Superieure, which 
has given many famous men to the service of France, amongst 
them the present Minister of Munitions, M. Albert Thomas. 
MPAINLEVE, Minister of War, in the course 
of a speech which was greatly applauded in the 
Chamber of Deputies, made a remark which 
. deserves tb be passed from the French Parlia- 
ment throughout all the AUied peoples ! "If to-morrow 
our will should seem to weaken and there should appear to 
be a crack in our military edifice, you will see the grinning 
face of Pan-Germanism replace Scheidemann's winning 
smile." In short, the French Minister thinks that if the 
Allies do not destroy German militarism once for all, the 
Pan-German conspiracy will wax more vigorous than ever, 
and only one course will remain open to the world that has 
grown weary of the struggle : to submit sooner or later, 
frankly or under some specious dissembling. Then we should 
be " organised" by the friends of the most sage Ostwald: 
organised ! The darkness of night would descend upon a 
world whence the independence of the nations had been 
banished. 
Is it so very difficult to realise that the day when Scheide- 
mann's winning smile beguiled us into consenting to sign 
peace on the terms of a drawn game would be the day before 
Germany won a decisive victory ? 
It is the simple truth that no glittering sophistry can disguise, 
the manifest truth that a drawn war would be a German victory. 
Scheidemann is far too good a patriot to suggest a " drawn 
game " to us if it were not to the advantage of his country. 
We are fairly entitled to indulge in speculation about the 
Germans, and often it seems almost impossible to think about 
them as one thinks about the rest of the human race. But 
so far as German patriotism is concerned there is no room 
for rnisconception. A man like Scheidemann, who is looked 
upon everywhere as a semi-Chancellor, as the inspirer and 
also the mouth-piece of Bethmann-Hollweg, would never 
propose to draw the game and conclude a blank peace unless 
it were bound to be to the advantage of his country. 
One must, instinctively, suspect all German proposals, 
but one must be much more suspicious of those that seem 
to be moderate than of threats of frightfulness. The brutal 
, threats of the Pan-Germanists are good for our cause ; the 
mealy-mouthed advances of the Socialists are bad for it. The 
former make us angry, are warnings, put us on our guard 
against danger. The latter minister insidiously to our pro- 
found, sincere desire to see peace and concord restored to 
the world, and thev delude us. ,■■.■, 
Every time a Pan-Gcrmanist pamphlet is published we 
ought to make the welkin ring with our gratitude for these 
salutary, if insalubrious productions. The Pan-Ger:nanist 
is the most honest German, because he is the most sincere. 
He is covetous, but he acknowledges it. He has premeditated 
designs upon our domestication, but he is quite candid about 
it. The Pan-Germanist most certainly is the German who 
is serving the cause of civilisation in the world the most 
effectually at the present time, for his incessant advertising 
puts the Allied Governments and peoples on their guard. 
If all the Allies had taken the menace of Pan-Germanism 
seriously before 1914, we should not still be in arms after 
three years of stern war. We all should have been armed. 
The German Government is beginning to reahse that the 
Pan-Germanists are looked upon by the Allies as heralds of 
danger. It seems to want to discredit them by means of 
attacks made upon them by its " Socialists." It has sanc- 
tioned judicial proceedings against some Pan-Germanists of 
note, as much as to say, " See, my dear Allied Peoples, I 
am not Pan-Germanist. I do not know him. I decline to 
recognise him." No one but a child would allow himself to be 
caught in such a trap. There are even children to-day who 
would be suspicious of such artless underhandedness. It is 
'positively humiliating for us that the enemy can believe 
the Allies can be deluded so easily. ^ 
Wlienever we read a pafnphlet written by Socialists or by 
Germans whom we regard as Liberals, we must take care. 
These Socialists are either members of the- majority and 
disloyal to the Government, or they belong to the minority 
and are of no repute. As for the German Liberals, they 
represent the lowest class in their country. Their utterances 
might give the Allies an impression that in the enemy land 
there is a sane public that deserves consideration. As a 
matter of fact, there is only a handful of national " non- 
conformists," and that quite inconsiderable crew is tolerated 
by the Kaiser in order to put us on a wrong scent. And so 
it is allowed to express itself pretty freely at a time when 
the Press itself informs us that the censorship is doubly 
secretive. If German authority opens the coop for the 
Liberal and Socialist chickens, it does so in compliance with 
a system of organisation of which the object is to mystify 
the Allies for the fullest advantage to the House 6f Holien- 
zollern. That is why the most objectionable Germans are 
much more useful to us to-day than the most liberal among 
them. The latter are designed by modern Fatality to infect 
us with the poison of sleeping sickness. It is a danger 
against which we must be ever on our guard. 
Let us merely enquire what would happen if we were to 
cease hostilities in the present circumstances, imder the 
delusion that both parties were going home having to pay 
their own costs, to use a legal phrase. 
The Allied Nations, who were dragged into the war by 
compulsion, peoples who for a long time had been demo- 
cratic, pacific and peaceful — Belgians, British, French, 
Americans, etc. — would spontaneously and automatically 
resume their intellectual and moral occupations, viewing the 
world in the alluring tints of the spirit of peace. Naturally 
the old forces, now ui^der restraint, and methods of politics 
where considerations of internal order are paramount, would 
come into use again, and with all the more energy because of 
their long repression ; their own natural elasticity woffld be 
given free play. 
The old political parties would then resume their cam- 
paign. The least discerning of men can foresee how all the 
parties would proceed to bring indictments against the rest 
and also attempt to make good their own defence. But 
on the morrow of so much mourning and misfortune and 
misery, politics would not be confined to the clubs and to 
meetings held at specified hours ; it would be in the streets 
and throughout every rank and grade of human society that 
