Ck^tober 25, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN. LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23. 1917 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
The Hohcnzollern Soap Box. By Louis KacmaekeES i 
Conditions of Victory (Leader) 3 
Riga Bay. By Hilaire Belloc 4 
jermany in the Baltic. By L. Cope Cornford 8 
Prince Henry of Prussia. By J. Coudnrier de Chassaigne 9 
The Choice lor our Children. By Jason ' ii 
■Msace-Lorraine and the Rliinegold. By Philippe Millet 13 
lonathan. By William T. Palmer 14 
The Serenading Party. By Etienne 15 
Dr. George Saintsbury. By J. C. Squire i() 
France On? and Diverse. By F. T. Eccles 17 
Books of the Week iS 
Mesopotamia New and Old (Photographs) 19 
Domestic Economy 20 
Kit and Equipment 25 
CONDITIONS OF VICTORY 
IN the series of articles which Mr. Hilaire Belloc is now 
contributing to L.\XD & W.\ter, he wisely leaves "peace " 
out of the question, unless it is preluded by " victory," 
for it is only by victory, full and ccmplete military 
victory, that the Allies will be in a position to impose terms 
and insist on punishments which are absolutely vital to peace, 
vital also if European civilisation is to be preserved. The 
speeches delivered on Monday afternoon at the Albert Hall 
by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
dwelt on this point of view which is familiar to the readers of 
this journal. ..Mr. Lloyd George declared that without full 
victory, " there are men and women in this hall now who 
may live to see the death of civilisation," and Mr. Bonar Law 
asserted that without full victory " the economic condition of 
Great Britain would be intolerable." General Smuts dwelt 
on another aspect, on one which, in our opinion, is not suffi- 
ciently spoken about. He said that " the true battle front of 
this war is in the soul of the nation." The illusion is common 
at home that the individual is of little worth in winning 
the war. "A bomb falls one night," they say, "and we, 
ourselves, and perhaps our families, are wiped out of exist- 
ence; but it makes no difference, the war and. the world go 
on just the same. Our lives are, it would seem, valueless, so 
why trouble ourselves about the way we order them, seeing 
we make no difference living or dead." It is an illusion 
which tends to >\'eaken and undermine resolution, and in 
order to engender and foster just such illusions Germany wages 
war on civilians. It is well, therefore, that this truth on 
which General Smuts laid emphasis should be impressed on 
the popular mind : 
1 he' battle front is not merely in France or in Flanders ; 
the battle front is here in this country also. And you , as you 
sit here to-day, the women and children, and the men of 
thi.s country who do not belong to the Army, can take your 
place by your comrades and join in the fight just as those in 
France and Flanders. 
" German industry, German education, German science, 
German politics, German diplomacy, German fle^h and 
blood for generations have been devoted to the' destruction 
or enslavement of their neighbours'' — so spoke the Prime 
.Minister, and his words are the plain truth. There may be 
those in Germany who regret that these things should be, 
but they have never exerted their influence to any purpose, 
and they have been powerless to change or check the current 
of national opinion. We still look in vain for either the old 
Germany or the new Germany, which we are told is the 
true Germany by those who believe that if the HohenzoHern 
blight Were removed we should discover outside Prussia 
a healthy national growth. Would that it were so, but 
that it is not so is testified by every prisoner of war that 
finds his way home, and still more strongly by every act of 
war which Germany perpetrates. The invasion and dis- 
persion of the Zeppelin fleet has distracted the general mind 
from a much more important incident of last week — we 
refer to the destruction by German armed raiders of the small 
fleet of neutral ships and of their escort of tw^o destroyers in 
the North Sea. An Admiralty inquiry has now been instituted, 
and in the meantime we must suspend judgment. It may 
be said, with some justification, that such incidents damage 
our naval prestige, but that should not lead us to under- 
estimate the great work so efficiently and untiringly per- 
formed by the British Navy for the past three years. Mistakes 
of strategy and administration have occurred, but because of 
these errors to call on the- Navy to perform miracles and to 
undertake operations which the very voices which demand 
the*>, would be the first to denounce when they failed in- 
evitably, seems to us neither reasonable nor right. There 
the matter from the British standpoint remains at the moment, 
but from the German standpoint something more must be 
said. 
To sink the tradmg ships of neutral countries, without 
giving the crews a chance of saving their lives, and, moreover, 
to fire on the boats which these very ships had launched ior 
the purpose, is the most outstanding act of barbarism which 
the German Fleet has yet accomplished. Not a single excuse 
can be urged in mitigation of this cold-blooded massacre, nor 
can the Captains of the two German cruisers be exone- 
rated from the crime. These were their own masters in the 
hour that these murders were committed. The chivalry of 
the sea is a law far older and higher than any command of 
the Kaiser or his Admirals. Had their officers displayed 
even a rudimentary sense of righteousness or mercy, would 
they have been punished for it ? The fact is, they acted 
according to their natures, and their natures are not peculiar 
to themselves but common to their nation ? In the drowning 
and slaughter by shot and shell of these defenceless Norwegian 
and Swedish sailors, we behold the reflection of " German 
education, German science, German politics," etc., and until 
these crimes are punished in the same manner and degree 
that similar crimes are punished in civil life, Europe can never 
be made secure against a fresh outbreak of the same barbarism. 
The danger is that the conscience of the Allies may be 
drugged by the very excess of Teuton blood-lust. We have 
to be on our guard against this, for it is a perfectly right and 
healthy emotion, in ordinary circumstances, not to permit the 
mind to dwell on pitiless and horrifying incidents. A 
murderer commits as bad an offence against the public 
conscience as against his victim, a truth which we may easily 
recognise by the way in which normal and active minds 
revolt from sensationalism in peace times. But it would 
be cowardly to assume that mental attitude towards Germany. 
The full measure of her abominations has yet to be told, and 
it will be told. One of the first conditions of victory is, a just 
retribution for these inhuman offences. 
Before another week comes round in all human pro- 
bability London will be again under the murderous missiles 
of German aeroplanes. Tliis incident of the war is accepted 
with extraordinary composure by the British inhabitants 
of the metropolis. When out of the dark mists of night, 
death, let blindly loose by an enemy whose pride is cruelty and 
ruthlessness, destroys at one blast half-a-dozen babes, as 
happened last week, there is naturally a cry of horror, but 
there is not the slightest intention, because of this, to deflect 
the nation's determination towards final victory. The British 
character dofes not change. One has only to recognise the 
unalterable resolution, which in the outer parts of Empire, 
under similar barbarities, has at different times established 
that pax Britannica on which Britons, not without reason, 
have prided themselves in the past, in order to realise that 
if there be one act of faith more fixed in a British breast than 
another, it is that no harm men can do to the body can 
destroy the purpose of the soul. It is in the knowledge 
of this truth that even the humblest British citizen can find 
personal satisfaction. His life is not lived in vain if to the 
last hour he clings to this belief and acts on it, for this belief 
is the sure rock on which final victory has ever rested and 
sliall ever rest. We have no wish to see German homes 
suffering under aerial bombardments in the way English 
homes have been made to suffer. But if Germans will have 
it so, they must have it. 
