6' 
Land & Water 
February 28, 191 8 
recruitment here , (2) ne cinnoi usi •■ = ..rivantaee in 
at will Here we have a reversal of his former advantage n 
^ he East There the whole weight of the Prussian group told 
at on?e In theWest it must count almost alone on Germany. 
''wmJugh our communications are far l-ger than f is and 
very ^•ulnenlble. whereas his are secure, yet the critical factor 
in thiswhich is tonnage, is slowly moving in our favour. The 
effS of thTs vvill not le felt for "some months, ^ut ultimate 
k must be felt if the national will of the Allies and espec ally 
of This country, where privation is sudden and serious, prove 
sufficient to tide over those months. 
^^ In eeneral material, looking down the whole list ol 
artkki oTordinan consumption, the AUies (granted an 
u imate sufficiency of tonnage) have an >"defimtey ^rg^;r 
field to draw upon than the Central Empires '^^nf he^Do^i 
grant these an ultimate admission to markets o the Don. 
Volga and Caucasus beyond their present Eas em front 
The situation of such an article as wool lUustrates what I 
"^The general truth in this department of the situation- 
mere production and supply-may perhai« be^ best, sta ed 
thus • Neither side is yet even in sight of applying actual 
compulsion, through lack of supplies to the other. Eacli is 
concerned with nothing more than the relative tenacity in 
will which each may display, ""^er what is for both a 
severe strain. Neither party can yet or for a lo"? time 
"starve the other out '^ using the word starve m the 
extended sense of cutting off things necessary to the conduct of 
war and the mere support (under no matter what pnvation) 
of the civilian population. It is strictly a conflict of wills 
rather than of material. .,.1^1, 
How true this is wiU certainly appear in the last phases 
of the campaign. For if or when a war of movement is restored, 
whether by the enemy's failure or our own, it will at once be 
apparent that the victorious party, though it will be suffenng 
then more privation than it is suffering now, will readily accept 
the sacrifice in the immediate prospect of victory. Ihe 
psychological difficulty of maintaining at its proper standard 
of tenacity the national will in the present phase of the war 
is due mainly to the stagnation and inaction of the moment. 
II 
Simplicity, unity and immutability of purpose is the second 
great factor and a purely moral one. The advantage is here 
necessarily with the enemy and that for the following reasons:— 
(a) His whole combination is dominated by one national 
group : the various German-speaking polities, most of which 
are grouped directly under Prussia and all of which are heart 
and soul with Prussia. Outside this the only considerable 
body is the nine million Magyars— for the Slavs of Bohemia, 
Prussian Poland, the Drave and the Danube, are geographic- 
ally divided and in any case subject ; the Bulgarians have to 
consider only defensive action on a comparatively short front ; 
the loose Turkish Empire, even under its present deplorable 
administration, cannot but continue to depend upon the 
will of the Central Empires. 
. (b) As against this situation the Allies consist of four inde- 
pendent and sharply differentiated nations whose, objects 
m entering the war were not identical and whose motives of 
continued action are not even identical to-day ; who have 
suffered in very different degrees ; and in whom, therefore, 
the reactions produced by suffering are very different ; whose 
historical attitude towards the Germans and whose judgment 
of them differs enormously, and whose direct cause for desiring 
a complete victory differs still more. Luckily for the Allies 
the Germans have themselves, by their abominable contempt 
for Christian morals, helped to unite these different elements, 
and they have aroused a high degree of indignation in men 
living thousands of miles away, who have not seen, nor even 
by imagination half realised, what the tortures, and burnings, 
and murders and rapes and thefts in Belgium and Northern 
France have been. But still, it is one thing to feel indignation 
about these things when you read them in connection with a 
distant and foreign country, and another thing when you know 
that they have happened to your own flesh and blood. 
(c) Unity of purpose again iS singularly served in the case 
of the enemy by a similarity of historical tradition throughout 
all that counts in his territory. Every German and every 
Magyar has inherited for centuries the conception that he 
was standing up against the Slav flood and was bom to master 
it. Most modem Germans at least have inherited or have 
been indoctrinated with the idea that if the West conquers 
them it conquers them thoroughly, and treats them as the 
inferiors which history has proved them to be. It sounds a 
paradox, but it is perfectly trae that, closely intermixed with 
the modem Gcnnan pride (which is nearly insanej, and with 
the extraordinary perversion of history which ascribes to 
heories but of defeats, tnat the West ,s naturally superior, 
and that when it wins it wins thoroughly. In other words 
there is at bottom a feeling of nervous self-defence agains 
the West hidden away in every Gc^nan mmd oyerlaid but 
not destroyed by a contradictory attitude of .self-sufiiciency- 
which after all, only dates from fifty years ago. 
'd) There is further in this war the very real ur ity of purpose 
produced by the spirit in whicn it was undertaken ; the failure 
of its original plan and the mood which has been aroused 
throughout civilisation against the Gemians as the result of 
its conduct. All Central Europe knows that if it is defeated 
punishment will follow ; it is fighting to prejent such chastise- 
ment. If it can prevent it it will feel, and rightly feel, that 
it has made good"^ Every nation except the United States is 
fighting for its life in this war. But whereas the effects of 
defeat will be felt indirectly and the ebbing of national life 
would only proceed by degrees among the Allies should they 
accent defeat, it would be felt immediately, directly and by 
every individual in Prassianised Germany (to a less degree 
in Hungary and the German Austrian provmces) if ihey were 
defeated. To take the least of all the instances which prove 
this Consider what would happen to the Magyar if the Slavs 
whom he oppresses were released. Look at the inap and 
conceive of the position. He could no more voluntarily 
release the Slav without further consequences following than 
a man can release a wolf which he has by the ears. We can 
release the Slav nations by victory. Nothing else will do it. 
III. 
The third, and, as I have suggested, what will perhaps prove 
the decisive, element is information. I include under this 
term propaganda in neutral and even in enemy countries, 
but I mean by it especially the information of the public at 
home. 1 ■ 1. 1 1 
As to propaganda abroad among neutrals, it has largely 
lost its importance since the entry of the United States into 
the war. We used to hear too often of the marvellous organisa- 
tion the enemy maintained abroad and its triumphant effects. 
I am personally no very good judge of such things, for I have 
an insufficient knowledge of modern languages. But from 
what I have seen it seems to me that each of the belligerents 
has been almost equally slow and silly in his method of propa- 
ganda among neutrals ; and certainly the Germans were not 
successful in their chief effort, which wa^ to capture opinion 
in the United States. 
Of propaganda in enemy countries I cannot speak, because 
its effects are in no way apparent. We know, speaking 
generally, that Prassia would shoot men whom we allow to go 
at large, and we also know that the different countries of the 
Alliance practise very different degrees of severity towards 
men briefed for the enemy. But we remark upon the other 
hand that the enemy propaganda has had very little effect 
among ourselves, and I fear we must add to that our own 
propaganda has hitherto had very little effect in his countries. 
The real " variant " in the problem, the place where there 
is room for expansion and where weican be perfectly certain 
that hitherto we have been inferior — especially in this country 
— is in the department of domestic information. Our people 
have not been told what defeat would mean ; why victory is 
a necessity ; what victory is ; nor what its tests are, by which 
they may recognise it. On this account there has been the 
fluctuation of opinion whicli caused more concem a few months 
ago than now, and on this account also there has been proposed 
as our object in war a number of policies incompatible one 
with another, e.g. we cannot punish the murderers of Dinant 
with the approval of German " democracy." For German 
" democracy " — or populace — revels in the story of Dinant. 
Here it must be remarked that the enemy Government has 
a natural advantage in the matter of information which we 
cannot obtain. He has only to tell his people that if they 
give way they will be severely punished for their crimes and 
made to work to repair them, and his people at once under- 
stand so simply and obviously trae a proposition. Our people 
are in no such situation. We cannot instruct them by the 
repetition of so cmde and self-evident a tmth, for they have 
not committed these crimes. There is no wanton damage 
which they could be asked to repair at the expense of long 
years of hard work for others, nor have any of our commanders 
or men bad consciences, and the resulting fear of consequences 
in the future. 
That is a very real difference between the two sides. It 
makes the task of the enemy in the matter of infomiation 
infinitely easier. In the same way it is easier to persuade a 
man to hang on when he has a precipice below him, than it 
