LAiNU dc WATEK 
w ill lie, and I would suggest, as T lia\c previously suggested 
in these columns, thp rather obvious line which for centuries 
has been the road for armies and is to-day an excellent lateral 
communication — the depression which runs across the 
Samarian highlands, marked to-day by Shechem,and|forming 
the backbone of the old kingdom of Israel. It might properly 
be called "the line of Samaria." There is here not only a road, 
but the railway from Damascus (of which a branch goes to 
Carmcl Bay) forms an excellent avenue of supply, the hill 
positions in front of which are high and fairly continuous ; 
while it may he presumed that tlie river Auja, the most 
considerable stream after the Jordan in the Holy Land, 
will continue the line to the sea. But in connection with this 
latter point we must remember that the Turkisli flank upon 
the sea will always be somewhat insecure. The Turks clearly 
intendetl twice to rest their flank upon the sea during General 
Allenby's recent advance up the Philistine plain, and each time 
were turucd. apparently by naval action from outside. 
THE ITALIAN FRONT 
L'pon the'ltalian front this pressure of superior numbers has 
ilso had its effect, just as it has had its effect before Cambrai. 
There is a group of high peaks making a sort of knot to the 
aorth-cast of Asiago. Their most important summit was that 
December 13, 1917 
« 
of Castcl Gombcrto. They formed a very acute angle thrust 
out from the general line, an accident common in mountain 
warfare, because in that sort of warfare superiority of height 
is so important that a defensive line takes evory advantage 
it can of crests, even at the risk of holding difficult salients. 
This awkward projecting angle was reduced by the Austrians 
in the course of last week in a series of attacks upon the heights 
which encircle Castel Gomberto. As a result they captured in 
its entirety the garrison upon it, the enemy claiming as the total 
of his operations, not only the flattening out of the line, but 
some 15,000 Italian prisoners. Meanwhile, we are officially 
informed that British troops arc now in line just west of the 
Piave, upon tiic height called the Montello, which dominates 
that stream by about 1,000 feet. The information is nec- 
essarily of a very vague kind, and we know nothing of the 
])roportionatc strength of the opposing armies upon the 
critical mountain sector which forms the flank of the Piave 
line. Everything still depends upon whether that sector holds 
or no, for if it does not hold the Piave line is turned. Rouglily 
speaking, the Allies are in this mountain sector forced ba:k to 
the top of the wall overlooking the Plain in its eastern part, 
while in its western part they are still holding positions from 
three to seven miles northwards of that edge. The future here 
depends upon whether this wall can be permanently held or 
not. 
Crisis of the War and the Advent of America 
THli two- great factors of the war in its present phase 
are revolutionary in their character and novelty. 
They are the elimination of the P:astern front on the 
one hand, and the junction of the United States with 
the Allies of Wistern Europe on the other. 
The significance of the first factor has been emphasised in 
J„\.\D & Waikk in a fashion only restricted by pohtical 
necessity. The full truth with regard to it has not yet been 
told, and certainly could not be exaggerated. It is, as has 
here been consistently pointed out for a long time past, 
catastrophic in the true sense of that word, which signifies 
not a foial disaster, but an upturning of all pre-existing con- 
ditions. The eiimination of the Eastern front through the 
Russian Revolution gives Prussia and her dependents an active 
siipenority over Western civilisation, that is, France, Great 
Britain and Italy. It gives the enemy a superiority in men 
and material. The war ceases to be a siege and becomes a 
duel. So have thijigs been potentiayy since the Russian 
State collap.sed nine months ago ; so have they been actually 
since the Revolution destroyed the remaining power of the 
offensive in the .Southern Russian Armies five months ago ; 
so have they been in practice and manifested in example 
alter example sin ce the tremendous blow on the Upper Isonzo 
now nearly two mionths old. The Central Powers, on account 
of active treason to the Alliance by the international gam,' 
m the capital of Russia, and on account of the popular 
passions this gang has played upon, are now in a military 
sense concemed with Western Europe alone, and Western 
Europe, immeasurably their superior in value, is their inferior 
in numbers. That is the position in one phrase. We no 
longer contain the enemy. We must, upon the contrary, 
nerve ourselves to withstand a new pressure, the success of 
kvhich (still more a political truckling to which) would destroy 
our inheritance. Our Eastern ally has failed us altogether " 
. .."^ ,*? -^ . ^ situation there comes in the promised help 
• of the l;nited States. That is. of a polity itself the ofispring 
ol western civilisation and inheriting its traditions This 
second factor m the situation follows clo.seJy and point by 
point the first The declaration of adhesion to our cause made 
by the authorities of the United States comes but a few weeks 
later than the news of the Russian Revolution. The first 
appearance of American units, Naval and Military and the 
various measures taken by our new Ally to make real its power 
in aid ot us, correspond with the summer collapse of the last 
Russian effort. The presence of a serious American force 
under traimng in hrance and of its growth from an original 
nucleus corresponds to the first great active' results of the 
new state of affairs in the West : this autumn and winter— 
which have seen the tremendous enemy blow against Italy 
and the enemy concentration in front of Cambrai— lia\v 
also seen the new American force in training upon European 
soil for the new tasks of trench warfare, and its rapid and 
continual increase. " ■^ 
The tremendous changes, therefore, which this war has 
brought about, presents us now with another and perhaps the 
last turn of the wheel. The West is definitely united , and has 
for Its sole antagonist Prussia and her dependents. One of 
the two wil conquer. It is a mere substitution of words for 
things which taks of a "draw" or regaids as stable Any 
solution JQ which an unconquercd Pnissia shall stiU remaiii 
in Europe. All the phrases about not desiring to crush the 
enemy and the rest of it "are excuses for surrender. One or 
the other in the two camps will control not only the material 
fortunes of the world, but, what is much more important, its 
spirit in the next generations. And which of the two will 
do so depends upon the fortunes of that battle line which 
stretclies from the .\driatic to the North Sea, interrupted only 
by the neutrality of the .Swiss Mountains. Upon that battle 
line civilisation is now upon the defensive so far as Europe is 
concerned. The ITnited States have come in as a last reserve. 
Let us appreciate what that effect may be, putting first what 
must always be provided in any such estimate, the deter- 
mination to see things exactly as they are and not to follow 
the always detestable and to-day mortal habit of emotionalism 
whether it tend to exaltation or to panic. Let us weigh as 
exactly as we can the advantages for and against both 
sides. 
The enemy, as we have said, has a clear advantage over the 
Western European Powers in material and in numbers of men. 
So long as the Eastern front stood he was not only at a dis- 
advantage in both these matters, but he was strategically under 
a state of siege. He was confined in his fighting to a particular 
area pounded upon every side. To-day that has gone, and 
all that is connoted by a state of siege has gone with it. 
„ \^^ '^,^ '■'^Peat for perhaps the fiftieth time that the word 
siege " and the word " blockade " (in its general : not its 
technical, legal, maritime sense), have nothing in common 
except that siege often also permits a blockade, though a 
blockade can exist without a siege. A siege is, properly 
speaking, the confinement to a limited area of manceuvre of 
a military force. It has certain consequences attached to 
it, inevitably adverse to the besieged though not necessarily 
(as_ history can prove in a hundred cases) leading to their 
defeat. The chief of these circumstances is the fact that under 
a siege the process of attrition can be calculated, while the 
element of surprise is eliminated in as high a degree as is 
possible The siege of the Central Empires which could not 
be raised by relief— for there was no one marching to their 
aid— has been raised by a political accident, to wit, the 
dis,solution of what was once the Russian State. There is a 
siege no longer. 
The Central Empires now thus massed against the West, 
and to be massing more and more against it as time proceeds, 
nave another ad\antage beside the numerical advantage in 
men and material. They have advantage in communications. 
(1) IJieir communications are wholly by land and therefore 
rapid and simple, while those of the Western European Powers 
are laigeiy by sea and therefore slow and complex, involving 
a lew congested points and at least hiv transhipments. 
[2) lliey are working within an arc of a circle and the 
\Vestern Powers are working outside the arc of that circle, 
iheretore even if the communications of both were entirely 
he .l^H i r ?"J^F '" '"apirtity and concentration would 
be with the Central Powers. 
linl^-^ J^"- ■" ^o/i^ni""i<^ations being by land and within their 
mnrt.w"'''"K"'j:f ^'- , ^""^ "^^ °"'- communications being 
maritime are highly %iilnerablc and subject to an increasing 
The Central Powers have this next advantage in such a 
dud, then supply of material, especially of coal and iron. 
