LAND & WATER 
December 20, 1917 
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possession of the Caprilp, on the next he did more. 
For, by Saturday night the enemy liad here achieved a cer- 
tain measure of success, which we must not overlook. 
It is' true that he had only advanced by some three-quarters 
pi a mile, and that only upon one point — but the ]>oint was 
a ver\- .important one : that point of the Caprile Pass upon 
wlridi a'.uch depends. As long as the Caprile Pass was held 
the ridge . dominating the Brenta valley here, cut off the enemy 
from aco,'ss to it or from observation of it from the east. 
But with Xhc enemy once on the top of this ridge and over it — 
which is now the case at the point of the Caprile Pass, he 
dominates and overlooks the outlet of the Gadena Valley. 
He can rKAv secure complete possession of the Gadena 
Valley inctading San Marino at its mouth, and of the 
heights ovesiooking it from either side, he lias a second 
and most important avenue of approach, suj^plcmcnting 
his direct pressure down the Brenta by columns coming down 
the Gadena. Of the various converging roads to the Plain 
only the rough and difficult Frenzela will still be closed to him. 
If the Frcnzeki should go it is difficult to see how his further 
progress down to Bassano could be prevented. Of course, 
his success at the Caprile is still under question. Only obscr\a- 
tion upon the spot could tell one how far his trenches on the 
south-western side of the Pass are either overlooked or enfiladed 
by neighbouring Italian positions, but we cannot afibrd to over- 
look the fact that, at the moment of. writing and according to 
the latest despatches then available, the enemy has secured 
what is geographically the key to the middle of the Brenta 
ravine. 
Meanwhile, the positions further to the east, right up to 
the Piave itself, remained what they had been for many days 
past. The enemy was held well to the north of that great 
mass called ^Mouiit Grappa, which stands on the edge of the 
Plain and overlooks it all. He came nowhere really near the 
Plain save at the last high point before the Pia\'e, called Mount 
Tomba. 
The exact position on Mount Tomba is not very easy to 
ascertain from various accounts given, and yet it would be 
of great importance for us to know the situation precisely, 
because Mount Tomba directly overlooks the Plain, and if its 
summit be permanently and securely in the hands of the enemy 
it means that the enemy has observation of the best kind over 
the Plain. 
Now most of the French and Englisli accounts we have re- 
ceived tell us in the clearest manner, the summit is in the hands 
of the enemy, and I have myself repeated that statement in 
these columns upon the only evidence available, and the state 
mcnt was made long before the end of last month. But here 
comes evidence from the enemy's side, printed on the 29th of 
November in a German paper, "the Vossischc ZciUing. over the 
signature of a correspondent called Ross, to the effect that 
of the two rounded licights. the one nearlv 400 feet below the 
other, only the lower one is in the hands of the Austro-Germans. 
The highest summit is called upon military maps ", Hill 870 
Metres," the lower one " Hill 715 Metres," and, according to 
the German correspondent with a Scotch name, the enemy is 
not only overlooked from above by the Italians, but badly 
harassed by them through this advantage they have. 
A Demand for Unity 
The winter and spring months before us will prove, as 
everyone knows now, the most critical period of the whole 
war. The reasons of this are also familiar to everyone. 
They consist in the betrayal of the Alliance by the cosmo- 
politan anarchists who are running the Russian towns, coupled 
with the first immediate effect of this, the heavy Italian defeat 
still only a few weeks old — while the weight of America cannot 
be brought to bear uiitil well on into the fighting season of 
1918. , 
But over and above the^ appreciation of . our difficulties 
and of the ver>? heavy -stram immediately before us, there 
must be equally appreciated the imperative demand for 
unity, and unity lies in three things. Command in the field, 
war aims, and discipline at home. 
Unity of command has been spoken of, if anything, too 
much. We will return to it only for a moment. Unity of 
aim common to the various Allies has been obscured by 
wanton discussion and must be restored. But there is a 
third form of miity equally essential and perhaps more 
difhcult to obtain. It is domestic unity and voluntary 
acceptation of a political discipline which is as vital to the 
coming struggle as any other factor — even as mihtary disci- 
])line itself. 
Unity of command, the first of the three aspects of unity in 
the Alhance, has been ill-defined as the necessity for a single 
commander, acting with his single will. It "has already 
been shown in these columns how extravagant and even 
fantastic is such a claim, and how the ideal of unity of com- 
mand between various equal and federated Allies must aim 
at somethmg very different. I am glad to see that this 
obvious but cardinal point has been supported in the last 
few days by that military writer who carries by far the most 
weight of all upon the Continent, I mean M. Bidou of the 
Debals newspaper. It is perhaps characteristic of the modern 
Press that his remarks were quoted in London with his nami; 
so misspelt as to be unrecognisable, and without insistence in 
any leading article or in any message from a Paris corre- 
spondent. His pronbuncement was nofie the less of the very 
first importance. No one hears more than he does of French 
mihtary opinion or is more trusted for his judgment. He 
has pointed out in the clearest possible manner that unity of 
command in the case of such an Alliance as ours depends 
wholly upon the co-ordination of wills— in plain language 
upon getting on well with our Allies— and not at all upon 
some theoretical scheme for subordinating each national 
command to one arbitrary head. M. Bidou has put tin- 
argument so well that I need do no more than repeat it 
., 11 . .('r ^^ys '" '''f'^ct), " you could turn the United States 
tlie British Empire, the Itahan Kingdom and the French 
Kepubhcinto one political group having at the head of it an 
irresponsible mihtary despot, if, in a word, you could make 
something hke one nation of them, and that "nation organisfd 
