November 22, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
such decisive resufts as would a success on the Brenta bringing 
him down to Bassano. 
None the less it is at this point that the chief danger lies 
at the moment of writing. Quero has gone and the news of 
the struggle last Monday told us that Mt. Tomba on the 
edge of the plains was then in peril. 
PALESTINE 
In Palestine the enemy lost upon Tuesday last, the 13th, the 
positions he had tried to take up upon the Wadi Sukereir, 
twelve miles north of Askalon. He fell back five miles to the 
Wadi-es-Sukar, covering Jaffa, up the higher part of which runs 
that lateral railway to Jerusalem, the importance of whicli 
was pointed out last week. Over 1,500 prisoners, twenty 
machine guns and four guns at least were taken during that 
day's advance. 
On the 14th took place a success of high importance. The 
junction between the main north and south railway and the 
Joppa- Jerusalem railway on the Wadi-es-Sukar was captured. 
Lpon Thursday, the 15th, this steady advance along the sea 
coast had reached the line^Ramleh-Ludd and so came round to a 
point on the sea coast only three miles south of Jaffa. 
On the 1 6th no considerable advance was made ; the 
enemy claimed a successful resistance on that daj', still hold- 
ing the lines south of Jaffa, but General Allenby reported 
that information had reached him that the enemy was en- 
trenching a position north of Jaffa in front of the river Auja. 
On the evening of that day, Friday, the i6th, the total number 
of prisoners that had passed througli was some 9,000. 
On Saturday, November 17th, the Australian and New Zea- 
land mounted troops entered Joppa. There was no opposi- 
tion, the enemy having voluntarily retired behind that town, 
presumably towards the trench system which has already 
been mentioned as traced in front of the river Auja. 
The situation thus created in Palestine is very interesting. 
Politically the enemy is concerned with the retention of 
Jerusalem — at least it may be presumed that he is. Strategi- 
cally, he must continue to supply his army as he falls back. 
The main line of supply comes down from the north on to 
Damascus from Aleppo, which is presumably the centre of all 
his operations, and where he has we know not what concen- 
tration of troops ready for action southward or eastward. 
His line of supply for his Palestine army comes down east of 
the great mountain mass of Lebanon to Damascus, and 
Damascus is his base of supply and organisation for ail his 
forces to the south. 
From Damascus the railway goes down from the plateau 
nearly parallel to the immemorially old road from the east 
into Palestine, crosses the Jordan, where invaders have always 
crossedit, just below the Sea of GaliK-e, and then in the plain 
belcnv Nazareth turns south again, sending out a branch to 
Haifia, near Mount Girmel and so uniting Damascus with a 
tolerably sheltertjd roadstead. 
Meanwhile, the main line goes on southward, leaving 
Samaria on the right to the neighbourhood of Nablous (which 
used to be Shechem). F'rom this point a carriage road (pro- 
bably very much improved for the purposes of this war) 
fan take supplies along the ridge of the mountain land by a 
very tortuous way for a distance of .some 40 miles to Jeru.salem. 
Until this week, when the British force captured the junction 
at (i) there was also railway conununication with Jerusalem 
all the way. At the present moment, not only is the junction 
at (i) in British hands at Ramlehand I.udd as well as Jaffa, 
the enemy having lost all the advantage he had of the lateral 
communication of the Jerusalem railway, but he will still be 
able to supply his front and to be in touch with Jerusalem 
by two avenues of supply, the road and the railway, until, or 
if, the critical point of Nablous is lost to him. W'Tien that goes 
he has obviously nothing behind him but the Haiifa- Damascus 
Railway. If that goes he will have lost all Palestine. 
Whether he intends to stand there we do not know. There is 
not an indication in the despatches to tell us, save that he 
has prcp.ared a line upon the south side of the Auja river, 
which perhaps he will try to hold. 
The astonishing part of the whole of this story of the advance 
through Palestine is the way in which the problem of British 
supply has been solved, and when we consider the distance 
of the Eygptian base and what country lies between that base 
and the first green of Gaza, the solution of that problem is one 
of the most heartening episodes of the Great War. 
i , , I "IM J 
We are naturally kept ignorant of all the details. We 
can only note the result and admire it. We may be certain 
that the enemy never expected so rapid an extension of supiply 
to be possible. We must remember in this connection the 
parallel instance of the work done by the Royal Engineers in 
the advance on Bagdad. It was really their fertility o£ 
resources and industry which made that success possible, 
and it will seem something of the same sort is determining 
the campaign in Palestine. 
We. must remember with all this that there has been no set 
challenge to the British advance since the Gaza-Beersheba 
line was turned. The crisis of the campaign can only come 
when the pursuing army reaches some main defensive position 
on which the enemy has elected to stand. 
The Conditions of Victory— VI 
The Test of Poland 
The first condition of victory, we have seen, is the funda" 
mental military point that, unless the enemy suffers 
military defeat, the Alliance is itself defeated— witli all its 
objects. 
Next, we have seen that even though that military result 
were achieved, and as fully as possible, its fruit must be 
Restoration, Reparation and Guarantees : The formula 
which Mr. Asquith laid down with admirable clearness long 
ago, which includes all that can be said, and excludes all that 
need not be said upon this vital matter. 
But we have also in all this affair what is very important Ih 
any practical matter, and that is a test, 
Whenever you are doing something with your hands, making 
something in the real world, you apply a test. You have 
first, your general thesis, as,that you desire to build a bridge 
over a river inspiteof tlicopposition of such and such interests. 
If you can't build your bridge at all, if the interests opposing 
yon .in- tM,, sf,,,n.' f,., .-,,, fijf.p yf,„ ^^^ defeated and there 
is an end of it. There is no more question of the bridge. 
Supposing you get the better of those interests, it is still neces- 
sary that the bridge should come into existence, unless your 
victory is to be quite barren. But it may well be that your 
opponents, though unable to prevent your obtaining the out- 
ward symbols of success, unable, that is, to prevent your 
getting access to the river and even building your bridge, 
can interfere with you in one way or another, so that 
your bridge, when you come to make it, does not 
fulfil the function for which alone you undertook all this 
effort. You meant, for instance, to make a bridge which 
would enable your farm carts to go from one side of the 
river to the other, and unless they could so pass it was not 
worth your while to make a bridge at all. Well, if your oppo- 
nents let you throw some sort of bridge across the stream yet 
succeed in preventing its being strong enough to carry your 
carts, they have, in practice, won. 
You Iiave then, in this simple case, a test. Can you or 
ran you not build a bridge for the jiurposc you intend ? Will 
the bridge v'ou build carry a cart ? It it won't, whetherfrom 
