LAND & WATER 
The Crisis 
By Hilaire Belloc 
August lb, 1917 
ENGLAND has been threatened and is still threatened 
at this moment with the greatest peril of any 
that have confronted her since she became a con- 
scious nation. She is in danger of defeat at the 
conclusion of the only war which has seriously* menaced her 
growth and independence. 
In the past, supremacy upon the surface of the seas made 
her certain not only of continuing the mistress of In r own fate, 
but of being able to prolong her resistance indetinitcly and 
at the same time to throw into the balance of any land war 
a weapon unique and wholly her own. No European 
beUigerent in the past had disdained to recognise the solemnity 
of treaties or the rights of neutrals, and it is true to say that 
though tlie greatest wars in the past have threatened nations 
with foreign dyna.ities none, since barbaric times, threatened 
national existence as this war threatens it. P'or the means were 
not available. 
To-day and in this war, which in purpose quite as much as 
in scale stands quite separjite from all others, England is 
for the first time after three years of effort and of agony, 
in grave peril of defeat. And that peril is wholly political.. 
Were the peril mihtary, it would impose silence. No 
worse turn was ever done the country than the spreading of 
panic in moments w^hen the niiiitary situation seemed almost 
desperate, and it is to the lasting honour of the national 
temper that though attempts to spread panic ' were not 
lacking, the nation as a whole was not shaken at all. The 
nervous disease was- successfully isolated until the danger 
had passed. 
Now that the mihtary situation is secure and that the peril ^ 
— gra\e and immediate though it be — is purely political, the 
more outspoken criticism is, the better ; for an evil of this 
sort can only be met by open dealing. 
The ground upon which the political forces work in favour 
of the enemy's victory and our defeat is ground prepared by 
fatigue. One of the oldest phrases in all European languages. 
except our own, is the idiomatic phrase which the Germans 
translate " War-weariness." Prolonged strain produces it. 
In the principal struggles of human history it has been usually 
the determining /actor. 
The abnormal effort of a long war upsets all values ; moods 
that seemed impossible at the outset may become common- 
place in its later years. Objects which were quite clear in 
the first enthusiasm of the struggle, and for which indeed the 
■struggle was undertaken, become confused or are forgotten. 
Both parties to the conflict in different degrees are subject to 
this degradation of temper: Victory, if the conflict be pro- 
longed, is generally with him who suffers it least. If we enjoy 
the civilisation which we have to-day it is because Rome 
sacrificed three successive armies and endured the invasion 
and ravaging of all her dependent lands while Carthage, after 
a certain. measure of the strain, would not, although it had 
been a victorious strain, make the last supreme effort of 
reinforcement. 
No better example of the moral fatigue produced by long 
war could be given than the change in our attitude towards 
the German befouling of arms. It is a feature which all 
must have noticed and which emphasises in a rather horrible 
fashion this element of fatigue. We have grown used to 
abominations. 
The enemy from the first moment that he violated neutral 
territory and broke his solemn pledges has proceeded step by 
step to greater and yet greater crimes against the common 
morals of our civilisation. He has massacred hosts of innocent 
civilians, beginning under the mask of the word " Hostages, " 
continuing, as he openly avowed, for the sake of mere terrorism. 
He has included in those victims innumerable women, old men 
and little children. Even beiore the Marne he had bombed 
open towns. After his first defeats he introduced the use 
of poison. He proceeded to the use of massacre by sea ; 
first against unarmed enemies under the plea that the vessels 
in which they travelled might contain a cargo useful to war ; 
next against .unarmed enemies and neutrals indifferently, if 
they travelled in such ships ; next, to any ship whatsoever 
belonging to the belligerent powers opposed to him, however 
peaceful their mission, however incapable of defence their 
crews. Lastly, he extended this indiscriminate killing to 
neutral vessels and to the nationals of powei^s indifferent 
to his quarrel, murdering anyone who in any fashion, however 
indirect, might conceivably in his voyage trade with his 
opponents. _ 
.\gain, as the war proceeded and in a late stage of it, he began, 
at first tentatively, but growing bolder as time proceeded, 
to enslave the population of the territories behind his lines. 
Not onlv prisoners of war but neutrals were compelled under 
the threat of torture or death to help him in defending his 
evil life. Thev worked in the mines. They turned the shell- 
cases on his lathes ; they filled his cartridges ; they raised his 
fortifications against their own brethren.- Young giris were 
not spared ; children were separated from their parents and 
there are hosts of families who after more than a year of this 
vileness know not whether the remaining members are alive 
or dead. He has taken a peculiar and bestial pleasure in 
humiliation, compelling those under his. power to elaborate 
deference and selecting for special indignity men and women 
who occupy positions of respect, the chief magistrates and the 
ministers of religion. 
Now it is horrible but true that these things have become 
customary through the effect of time. Coilceive what would 
have happened in the mind of civilised Europe, what would 
have been said in the Presi of France and England, what 
expressions would have been used even in the artificial Parlia- 
mentary world, if we had read four years ago of the massacre 
bv any belligerent of crowds of.woundcil soldiers on board a 
hospital ship ! To-day. when such an atrocity is recorded it is 
recorded as an item of news. 
It is inevitable perhaps, enormously tragic as it is, that 
this crusting of the wounds should have taken place. The 
pitch of horror could not be maintained. But inevitable or 
no (and some of us seem to retain our original indignation 
better than others) it forms part of that general state of mind 
upon which. I say, those play who cither actively desire or 
indirectly serve, or as mere dupes are dragged in the wake 
of, approaching defeat. 
Every one of the forces at work, I say again, is political. 
Not one is military. All therefore can without oftcnce to 
military requirements, be analysed and exposed. 
Pacifist Sentiment 
The first and most obvious, but I think the least serious, 
is the presence in the community of a certain small number of 
people, very small in proportion to the whole body of the 
nation, but often wealthy and influential, who have from the 
beginning disliked the war and thought its objects unworthy 
of or inadequate to the general policy of Great Britain. They 
combat its continuance to-day. 
This handful of people (I am talking only of the sincere ones, 
for the rest are in another category) are worthy of respect, 
although the public exasperation against them makes it diffi- 
cult to give them their due. They have wholly nns-read 
history ; they quite misunderstand the position of this country 
in the world ; by a curious paradox their attitude is largely due 
to an exaggeration of British Power and, British security. 
If they know anything of the record of Prussia they know it 
only as a sort of dull history lesson, remote frcm actuality. 
They do not apply it to their own fortunes and those of their 
descendants. They conceived, at the outbreak of war, of 
an England which should remain benevolently neutral, 
though sympithetic. perhaps, with the cause of civilisation ; 
enriched during its course by trading with both sets pi belli- 
gerents ; and guaranteeing at its close the weaker from the 
worst effects of defeat. 
They thought (it sounds almost insane now-a-days, but 
it seemed much more plausible then) that after the struggle 
Europe would return to much the same life as that which it 
had left, and that in a somewhat similar balance of great 
powers the position of Great Britain would be, if anything, 
enhanced. 
Above all, they had a respect and most of thtm an affec- 
tion for modern Germany under its Prussian guidance. 
They were often men for whom commercial success was 
a sort of religion ; and the spectacle of a people rapidly in- 
creasing its wealth, strictly subjecting its submissive prole- 
tariat to regulations which made the wheels of capitahsm 
work smoothly, achieving numerous detailed successes in 
scientific discoveries, and methodically copying the much 
more numerous successes of more intelligent peoples ; a 
nation so rapidly industriahsing itself, becoming urban and 
building a great mercantile fleet . appealed to them. On the top 
of all this we must remember that they had been taught in 
all the text books of all the Universities" that Uierc was some- 
thing called " A Teutonic Race," of which they themselves 
were members, so that the greatness and expanison of modern 
Germmy cast a sort of reflected glory upon them even though 
thev were being outstripped in the race. 
The realities of the war at first shook these people. The 
