Land & Water 
February 14, 19 18 
of famine in many districts, grave scarcity in all ; an mcreasing 
and very severe strain ufK>n the civilian population every- 
where, and the possibility of social disintegration under that 
strain if it be too prolonged. We have had the thing summed 
up by more than one advocate in the phrase : " Europe is 
committing suicide." . 
Apart from this extreme and increasing exhaustion, which 
is the chief effect of the j^rolongation of the war, there has 
recently been rendered visible to every one the material 
effects in the field of the Russian collapse. The first and 
most striking of these effects was, of course, the tremendous 
victory of the enemy in Italy. For one critical fortnight it 
threatened to give him a true decision. Luckily it did not 
reach such a stage, but it came very near to it, and though 
opinion in tliis country was slow to realise at first what an 
enormous thing had happened, it is now, I think, everywhere 
and fully appreciated. Next there came the concentration 
of the enemy in the West, north' of the Alps, which is still 
continuing. Everyone grew aware that the Western Allies 
were compelled to prepare a defensive and that, for the first 
time in eighteen months, the initiative had passed to the 
enemy. A third stage, of which the issue is hidden from us, 
will occupy tlie inmiediate future, when the critical shock 
between tlie Western Allies and the newly reinforced enemy 
will take place. 
To all these causes of a weakening in the public mind 
there is added the threat of increase in the attack from the 
air upon civilian centres, the peculiar vulnerability of London, 
and, as we have said, the sudden and drastic reductions in the 
estimate of food consumable in the next few months within 
this island. 
There is also, it must be admitted with shame, something 
formidable in what is called the financial strain-^— as distin- 
guished from the true economic strain of insufficient provision 
and labour. This financial strain simply means that those 
who had hoped to lend on good terms to the State in its peril 
are now in fear that they will have to give. 
If all these forces combined (afid especially that of exhaus- 
tion, which is overwhelmingly the most important) were alone 
at work, if we had to deal with these considerations only, if 
there was against them nothing but a sense of disappointment 
in having to return to some such Europe as existed four years 
ago, less its perilous armaments, the arguments in favour of 
negotiation would be overwhelming. 
If some magical power could promise us securely, on condi- 
tion of our proposing peace, a future in which no nation could 
boast of victor}', in which subject nations should be freed, 
and in which all should lead a peaceful life permitting the 
reconstruction and healing of Europe and themselves, those 
who stood out against such a settlement would find it im- 
possible to convince the mass of any nation to-day. 
But the whole point of our contention is that the power 
thus gratuitously taken for granted— the power to return to 
ease with honour and security — is lacking. To suppose it 
present with Prussia unbeaten is to live in unreal conditions 
— conditions which have nothing to do with Europe as it 
was and as it is, with the known forces that have produced 
this war and conducted it. To take illusions fop realities is 
the royal road to disaster in all things, but especially in war. 
Unless we fix firmly in our minds what should surely be 
for all sane men the fundamental truths of this war, apparent 
to all a short time ago and still apparent to all who have kept 
their heads, men will fall, especially the more generous and 
idealbt of them, into a catastrophic misjudgment which will 
ruin Europe. It will ruin this country especially. Such a 
miscalculation now will reduce our future to something far 
worse than the gloomiest visions of those who propose sur- 
render. 
These truths, I say, were commonplaces to all a few short 
months ago. They should be commonplaces still, for they 
are as obvious as ever, and they are fundamental to the whole 
problem. What are they ? 
Prussia Alone Responsible 
The first truth is that the war was made by Prussia This 
awful calamity is the direct handicraft of Prussia and of 
Prussia alone. The second truth is that the barbaric prece- 
dents in modern warfare were created by Prussia, will rfmain 
if Prussia survives unbeaten, and would be the death of 
England. 
As to the first : There are a quantity of vague phrases 
going the rounds which mask that plain truth and make un- 
stable men forget it. The war is talked of vaguely as a 
general calamity." Too many people are getting to speak 
of It as though It was some visitation of nature, an earthquake 
or flood which men at last had got under control and could 
put an end to ; others are for ever taking it for granted in 
their speeches and writmgs that it was a sort of misunder- 
standing. 
The Germans themselves, especially during the interval 
between their bad tumble at the Mame and the new lease of 
life they obtained through the collapse of Russia, assiduously 
propagated the legend that the war had all sorts of distant 
unseen causes of a general European sort. It was due, they 
told us, to " an encircling of Germany by England " ; " to 
the vanity of the French and their desire for revenge " ; to 
" the unbridled Slav Imperialism of the Russian Empire." 
In another set of phrases they told us that it was " a biological 
necessity " ; that it was " the necessary establishment of 
equilibrium "■ — because the German Empire had no oppor- 
tunities of trade and colonisation corresponding to its strength, 
^n yet another set of pedantic phrases the war was talked of 
as" oceanic." It proceeded from the necessity of the Germans 
having a free way to the Atlantic in spite of the geographical 
barrier of the British Islands. Others, taking advantage of 
the materialist jargon of our time, talked about its " necessary 
economic causes." 
All that sort of thing is rubbish — unless indeed there is 
no such thing as the human will and no meaning attached in 
human affairs to the words " right " and " wrong." A man 
who committed a murder or forged a cheque might just as 
well trace these unfortunate accidents to distant causes : to 
his grandfather's bankruptcy, or to the accident of his victim's 
meeting him on a dark night when he happened to be in a 
passion. The plain act and the responsibility for it are quite 
enough for history and for all sane men. Prussia loudly 
preached the necessity for war and her power of victory in 
such a war. She prepared for it quite openly by raising a 
vast war tax and suddenly increasing her armed forces. She 
prepared for it almost equally openly when she designed the 
reconstruction of her artillery and the completion of her new 
strategical communications for the summer of 1914. When 
the moment came for her to strike she refused arbitration, 
took advantage of the unexpected blow she had prepared, 
mobilised secretly before her victims did, violated neutral 
territory without scruple, immediately proclaimed a reign of 
terror of the most abominable sort upon the soil of Belgium, 
which she had entered against every right and every treaty. 
From the first day of that crime began murder, arson, rape 
and pillage, after a fashion utterly unknown to modem 
Europe. So long as the uninterrupted victory of Prussia 
continued her spokesmen never dreamt of any other philosophy 
of war than that. Conquest, and conquest aided by terror 
without regard to treaty or tradition, was openly proclaimed 
and taken for granted ; nor could or did the masters of Prussia 
conceive any other fate possible for her than that of complete 
and rapid success in crime. 
The words which Mr. Asquith used at the outset of the 
combat exactly expressed the mind of all England at that 
time. The sword had not been lightly drawn ; it would not 
be sheathed again until the predatory military power called 
Prussia had been destrqyed. 
TTiat is the first main truth underlying the whole terrible 
business. It has not ceased to underlie that business because 
a certain space-of time has passed or because a certain measure 
of exhaustion has been reached — an exhaustion, be it remarked, 
far less pronounced in the case of Great Britain than that of 
any other original belligerent. 
If our primal, fundamental intention and our solemn 
declaration upon it are to be sacrificed, it can only mean that 
under the strain of suffering we have grown ready to yield. 
That is the first point, and probably the most important ; 
for in human affairs spiritual motives are more important 
than material things and underlie all action. A civilisation 
which has been violated in its most sacred points of honour, 
which has taken up the challenge, which has proceeded to 
defend itself, and has accepted the aid of allies must continue 
the struggle. If, before the end of the task, it cries that it 
has grown weary, is willing to treat, and finds the burden of 
honour in alliance too heavy, it is doomed. 
The second fundamental truth in the whole affair, which is 
less often forgotten but which is still too much glossed over,' 
is this : Prussia in the course of this war has gradually dis- 
solved that moral code upon which the culture of Europe 
reposed and without which Europe can never recover herself. 
Only her defeat can restore that code, and on that code 
depends the very life of this island more than of any other 
nation. 
Prussia was guilty of atrocity from the first day in which 
she broke a binding treaty and violated the neutrality of 
Belgium. But there is a more practical and vivid -example 
of the truth in the methods of accumulating horror which 
she introduced one after another into war. It was Prussia 
that began these things. It was not any such abstraction as 
the madness of war " or the " delirium of Europe " ; it 
was the rulers of Prussia— they, and they alone. 
For many months this truth was such a commonplace that 
one was ashamed to repeat it. One is almost equally ashamed 
to find the real necessity there is of repeating it to-day. 
