September 27, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN, LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. : 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. 1917 
CONTENTS 
Edith Cavell. By Louis Raemaekcrs . i 
The Kaiser's Hypocrisy. (Leader) 3 
The Battle of Menin. By Hilaire Belloc 4 
General Pershing. Bv Lewis R. Freeman S 
The Last Hours of Edith Cavell. By Hugh Gibson 9 
Poincarc and Painlcve. By J. Coudurier de Chassaigne I2 
The Perils of Restriction. (Correspondence) 13 
.Marching on Tanga. By J. C. Squire 14 
.\ccording to Plan. By Boyd Cable 1.5 
The British Firing Line. By Charles Marriott 18 
Two Drawings. By Lieut. E. Handley-Read 19 
Recent Volumes of Note 20 
Domestic Economy 22 
Kit and Equipment * 25 
THE KAISER'S HYPOCRISY 
THE German answer to the Papal Peace Note is sugar- 
coated insult. The Pope gave as his reason for issuing 
the Note last month that the time had come for 
" concrete and practiced proposals." The most 
concrete of the proposals put forward by His Holiness, so far 
as Germany was concerned, was " the complete evacuation 
of IVlgium, with a guarantee of her full political, military, 
and economic independence towards all Powers whatsoever ; 
likewise the evacuation of French territory." Not a word is 
written in reference to either of these matters in the German 
answer ; they are absolutely ignored as though it were mere 
impertinence on the part of the Pope to have alluded to them. 
Instead, the Papal Chair is treated to a fulsome eulogy of the 
Kaiser — " the ruthless master of the German people," to 
quote President Wilson's words— as the supreme evangel of 
peace, ever since he ascended the throne nine and twenty 
years ago. It almost seems as though Heaven had put the 
brand of Cain upon the German Emperor. That mark, it will 
be remembered, was set upon the first murderer that he might 
live, and not be slain in punishment for his crime. So it is 
with Wilhelm. Through all history he shall live as the 
prototype of the most unblushing liar who has ever occupied 
high place in the affairs of the world. He has boasted to 
equal the brutality of Attila and has not fallen far short of the 
original ; he has shown a callousness to human suffering which 
places him beside Nero, a name still execrated ; but when it 
comes to deliberate falsehood— foolish falsehood in that it 
deceives no one but himself and his pupix-t people — he stands 
alone upon a bad pre-eminence which no man shall hereafter 
contest with him. This document, from first to last, reeks 
of falsehood, and is possibly the most grossly impertinent 
missive; which has hitherto ever found place in the archives of 
the Vatican. 
The Allies welcome it. They understand there is not the 
slightest intention on the part of the Kaiser or his advisers 
to let go of Belgium or the occupied districts of France until 
they are compelled to do so by superior might. All the 
talk that appeared in German newspapers ten days ago was 
wind. The military and economic domination of Belgium 
is the fi.ved policy of tiie masters of Germany, and it is a policy 
that is still applauded and supported by the German people. 
I.ast week it wais pointed out here that Germany is fighting 
(or the next war which is sure to cotnc. This truth now finds 
confirmation in a book recently published in Berlin entitled 
Deductions from the World War. The writer is a General 
von Freytag Loringhoven, who was Q.M.G. on the German 
General Staff when Falkenhayn was Chief of it. In this book, 
(for particulars of which we are indebted to the Times), the 
German General shows how for one reason and another, 
chiefly because of sea-power, victory for Germany in the 
present war is impossible. It is, therefore, advisable that it 
should be terminated as soon as possible, when it will become 
possible " to work with the object of securing to Germany 
greater freedom for violent and decisive blows in one direc- 
tion." Freytag declares that the military demands pre- 
sented to the Reichstag before the war were " a feeble mini- 
mum measure of the desirable " ; and that in course of the 
war " German armaments have been seen to be inadequate." 
These mistakes must naturally not be committed in the 
iTitifle. Whether we like the prospect or not, we have to face 
the fact that already there exists in Germany a powerful 
and influential clique whose thoughts are occupied not with 
the present, but the future ; and this future has no concern 
with peace, but with war on a vaster and more ruthless scale 
which shall achieve for Germany that victory which is now 
recognised by all those, who are in a position to form a judg- 
ment, to be impossible in the present struggle. 
This fact having been established out of the mouths of the 
Germans, what significance are we to attach to these words in 
the German answer : " The Imperial Government welcomes 
with special sympathy the leading idea of the peace appeal, 
in which His Holiness expresses his conviction that in the 
future the material power of arms must be superseded by the 
moral power of right." The meaning to be placed on them 
is that, while other Powers are to conform in practice 
to this restriction of armaments, the present rulers of Ger- 
many will regard themselves free to pile up armaments 
seeing that they have introduced the inevitable saving clause 
that their act must be " compatible with the vital interests 
of the German Empire and people." Again and again have 
they justified the most unjustifiable actions by pleading they 
were necessary for German interests. It is obvious they are 
determined to maintain this plea. The point which we' 
desire to make quite clear is that this Peace answer, read in 
connection with public utterances wliich are now appearing 
or have recently been publislicd in Germany, proves con- 
clusively that Germany's one aim at the present time is a 
negotiated peace which will leave her free to work in her 
own way for the next war which is sure to come. 
The Allies are determined that this war shall not come. 
With the replies of Germany and Austria fresh in the public 
mind, it is well to repeat what the President of the United 
States wrote in his answer to the Pope : 
The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the 
world from the menace and the actual ]K)wer of a vast mili- 
tary establishment controlled by an irresponsible Govemr 
ment, which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, 
proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the 
sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practi- 
tices and long-cherished principles of international action 
and honour: which chose its own time for the war ; delivered 
its blow fiercely and suddenly ; stopped at no barrier 
either of law or ot mercy : swept a whole continent within the 
tide of blood, not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood 
of innocent women and children also, and of the helpless poor ; 
and now stands baulked, but not defeated, the enemy of four- 
fifths of the world. 
Since this was written, we have been given undeniable 
evidence of the falsehood and treachery of the German Diplo- 
matic Service in neutral countries. No one, we presume, 
would take the trouble to argue that such practices could have 
prevailed unless they were countenanced by the Imperial 
German Government and approved by the Emperor. 
Read the story published by Us to-day of the murdered 
English woman, Edith Cavell, written down by Mr. Hugh 
Gibson, of the American Legation in Brussels, not from 
memory, but when the events were new. We are shown 
here, in the most vivid light, the type of German mind we 
are fighting to destroy. There can be no enduring peace for 
mankind if that attitude towards life is permitted to survive 
this war. Who is to be the conqueror ? Which ideaiis to win? 
"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, who had 
done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth," or this 
other — a man for whom deceit is as a garment ; whose joy is 
violence, and who recks nothing of the sorrows or grief he 
creates ? There can be but one answer ; that answer is being 
delivered in the most pertinent manner by our gallant iroops 
ip Flanders and France. "Victory is assured," said General 
Smuts, the other day ; and after victory there must be 
pmiishment which shall purge civilisa tion of this horrible 
orgy of deceit and violence. 
