November 22, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
5, CHANCERY LANE. LONDON. W.C.2 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22. 1917 
CONTENTS 
Tlie Kaiser's \'isit to Sofia. By Ix>uis Raemaekers 
Dur True Policy (Leader) 
The Italian Front. By Hilaire Belloc ': 
Gemenceau. By J. Coudurier de Chassaigne 
Venizelos and His Army. By Lewis R. Freeman 
Chinamen in France. By Charles Watney 
A Great Experiment. By Jason 
Lord Morley's Recollections. By J. C Squire 
Books of the \Neek 
In Northern Italy. (Photographs) 
P.Ar.E 
I 
3 
4 
9 
II 
ij 
M 
iS 
10 
OUR TRUE POLICY 
THERE is some danger lest we at home should lose 
our sense of proportion in the matter of last week's 
excursions and alarms. 
Even after more than three years of war the 
political habits of peace are not wholly forgotten, and the 
idea that civilian debate is in some way the chief national 
business is difficult to eradicate. That is the impression 
one gathers when one contrasts the emphasis which our 
press has laid upon Monday's debate in the House of Com- 
mons, and the still greater emphasis which was laid upon the 
events which led up to that debate. The truth island a 
very few weeks or days will make it apparent— that none of 
these things, not even the proposal tg institute a new form of 
International Council, are in any way upon a par with the 
enormous business of the war; and wo civilians shall be 
doing a real service if we regard all political discussion as 
trifling compared with the actual struggle for the future of 
England, which still has for its theatre, and will continue to 
have, not council rooms in Ixjndon, not even in \'ersailles, 
but the plains of Flanders. 
Briefly, what happened was this : The political, chiefs of 
the Western nations and certain of the military advisers 
foregathered after the recent Italian disaster and decided 
upon the formation of a new International War Council. 
The formation of this Council was announced in very vague 
and even misleading terms, but its general cliaracter was 
clear enough. A second, and thoroughly different event, 
which must not be mixed up with this "first one, was the 
speech delivered by Wr. Lloyd George in Paris, and circulated 
to the press with such careful organisation that it was tnc 
immediate subject of the wildest rumo^irs within a very few 
hours of it being delivered. 
We say that these two things must be kept quite distinct, 
for, though they are obviously related, theit efiects are very 
different. By far the most important of the two is the pro- 
posal to establish an International War Council. The pro- 
posal has been defended strongly, and as strongly attacked. 
The real truth is that such an order should receive our careful 
support, and at the same time the fear of its extravagance in 
action, or its cramping the Higher Commands in the field, 
or its causing delay, and even o£ its giving an opportunity of 
interference by civilians with military problems, may easily 
be exaggerated. The })urport of this new organ is to increase 
the unity of action existing between the Higher Commands 
of the Western Allies, and it will be judged according to its 
success in fulfilling this function. But we must remember that 
such unity of action has existed since the very beginning of 
the war, and will Continue to exist until its close. Such a new 
department, the creation of such a new organ, may tend to 
facilitate its unity of action, but it is the wildest nonsense 
to talk of its being iiilherto absent, of each front having its 
own interest, and of each Army concerning itself with its 
own security and success alone, and not with its neighbours. 
There has been, and will continue to be n ctrict co-oMination. 
Nor is it very pleasant to remember that those who have 
failed to observe so elementary a truth (without which it 
would have been impossible to fight the war at all), only do so 
in moments of strain after or during some difficult moment. 
There is not, in the whole history of the Alliance, any such ■ 
'example of co-ordination as the British and F'rench Armies 
have shown in the last three years. It will be perfectly 
clear to the historian, as it is to the simplest of modern 
observers, that all the great actions were fought upon a 
common plan, dovetailed one into the other, and were the 
product of a. most remarkable co-ordination of wills. Had 
this not been the case, tjie story of the fighting on the West 
would have been different. That it was the case is the great 
merit and even the glory of the leaders who have had the 
tenacity, the patience, and the goodwill to effect that co- 
ordination in spite of the enormous difficulties attaching to any 
Alliance, and have kept it intact and even increasing through- 
out a period of three years. 
As to whether the presence of civilians upon this new 
Council will be hurtful or not, it is indeed a matter for dis- 
cussion ; but the limits within which harm could be done 
by the presence of such civilians are not very wide. It is 
inconceivable that men like Sir Henry Wilson or General 
Foch would listen patiently to instructions on strategy by such 
chance people as the action of modern Parliamentary life 
had given them as colleagues. It is hardly conceivable that 
e\-cn politicians should have the infelicity' to air their opinion 
upon so difficult a trade as war in the presence of such soldiers. 
It is one thing for a politician to get rid of some set of 
dom'estic expeit advisers at home who do not agree with him, 
and to replace them by another ; it is quite another thing for 
anyone knowing his ignorance of the subject to pretend to 
correct the strategy of the man who won the Battle of the 
Marne. Wc need have no fear of such a folly. 
In the second matter, that of the Paris speech, the proper 
attitude is surely well marked. First, that it was only a piece 
of sensationalism which will be as ephemeral as all such 
theatrical things are ; and, secondly, that it has ^een 
apologised for in the House of Commons, and may therefore 
be now decently buried. It is always a mistake, of course, 
to startle people when they are under a strain, and it is always 
a pity that those things which hurt the reputation of one's 
country, however slightly, should be said abroad. But it is 
easy to exaggerate the harm done even at the moment, and 
even now the incident is half forgotten. 
There is one thing only which dominates at once men's 
minds and the fate of the world ; and that thing is the effort 
of the Western Allies to break the Prussian military machine 
and the counter-effort of the Prussian leaders to save them- 
selves from disaster. There is only one policy which really 
concerns us : it is not a policy of criticising this man or that- 
The one and only policy which alone concerns us, is the 
policy of maintaining intact every possible force making for 
endurance, and therefore for victory. The whole of the war 
turns upon that one factor. Had this factor not failed us in 
one great member of the Alliance — that which was formerly 
the Russian Empire — victory would long ago have been ours. 
Llnfortunately, it failed entirely on that side. We must 
see to it with the whole strength of our hearts that it does not 
fail in the West ; that it does not yield to ill-formed attack, 
whether by persuasion, by weariness, by misconception, or by 
that basis of errors in time of war, the panic of excitable 
civilians after a reverse. 
There is perhaps one thing more to be said about this 
matter, which is that the mere magnitude of the war on the 
Western front is such that little -happily— can now be done 
by those oustide the armies to deflect its course, or to arrest 
its momentum. The organisation of the forces on so great a 
scale, their new long tradition of action, and their continued 
discoveries in the field of tactical inventions, the way in which 
they are bound up with the whole national interests of the 
Western peoples, and the way in which every family through- 
out those i>ecples is now bound by ties of blood to the Armies, 
make any serious perversion of their object difficult or im- 
possible. The fatal errors of civilian experiments were com- 
mitted long before the war had reached its present stage- 
It is morally certain that they cannot he committed to-day. 
