Land & Water 
June 6, 1 918 
ultimately one of expense, "^e condemn him to a certain 
expense, and our comminders, by their ri^ht use of resources, 
can condemn him to a higher rate of expense than our own. 
That, ind3ed. is the price of an offensive — always. We do 
not know the price he is paying, for it is his business to 
conceal it from us. We only know the price we are paying ; 
and even that very vaguely. In the last great movement 
we brought him to a halt, making him lose about five 
to our three. We not only brought hini to a halt, but 
we compelled a delay of one month at a time when every 
day means the nearer approach of jl turn in numbers. All 
this struggle, if it could be observed by one impartial to 
either side, and fully informed as to wastage, would be 
regarded by such an observer as a race between two sets of 
losses, coupled with a contrast between two intelligences, 
each eager to catch the first slip upon the part of his 
opponent ; the first gap. the first imprudent rush, the first 
unexpected congestion and confusion. 
There have been moments during the last two anxious 
months when tremendous execution was being done against 
the offensive without our general opinion at home appre- 
ciating adequately, or even appreciating at all, the advan- 
tage that was being gained. The great battle of April 2gth 
was such a moment ; the enemy was beaten dizzy between 
the Ypres Canal and Merris ; he was so beaten that two 
attempts to begin again broke down hopelessly, and yet 
there was no change upon the map. There was not even 
the possibility of presenting to our public at home any 
detailed comparison of his loss against ours. So it is to-day. 
In this connection we must remember the fundamental 
truth that the defensive is always working, not with its full 
strength, but with the minimum strength which it judges 
necessary to its task. You may have in such and such a 
place no moi-e than 3 or 4 divisions opposing 8 or 9. The 
men under the strain simply find themselves against over- 
whelming odds, and ask no questions. But the odds are 
not those of the total forces opposed, they are harder odds 
deliberately arranged by those who have the command of 
the defence. They are d;ffi:ult odds deliberately arranged 
because the defence so acting keeps its reserve in hand, while 
the offence is tempted to put in all it can lay its hands on. 
Another negative point, in connection with this negative 
judgment, is the point of communications. We must not 
judge too much by the map; the railways of peace time 
are not the railways of war time, nor are the roads. We 
must not, because some mere student of the map suggests 
it, say that the enemy's advance to this or that point has 
produced this or that disadvantage to our power of concen- 
tration. In the earlier stages of the war judgments of this 
sort were both permissible and valuable. To-day they are 
neither one nor the other. Three full years of construction 
have changed conditions beyond all knownig. 
Enemy Statements 
There is one last point in this connection, and that is, 
our reading of the enemy's bulletins. It would be extra- 
vagant to say that these are merely bombastic, or that th->;r 
exaggeration is wild. In thjir main lines. thev follow the 
truth. They put down, indeed, the largest captures which 
they can claim, or which they think we will a':cept ; tneir 
object is of course pohtical, it is aimed at civilian opinion 
abroad, and especially in France and England, bat wh°n 
they state precise numbers, and give the names of places, 
it is wiser to take them for the most part as accurate, or 
roughly accurate. What we must do, however, is to scan 
very carefully the messages the enemy sends in order to 
distinguish between preciie and vague statement. Words 
like "enormous," "vast," and the rest of it may be neglected. 
When the enemy says he has captured "far more than" 
such and such a number of pieces, it means that he has captured 
that number and perhaps somewhat over. When he says 
that he has captured a thousand " vehicles" we must remember 
that vehicles cover everything from a motor lorry to a hand 
barrow. When he says "repeated counter-attacks" broke 
down with "sanguinary" losses (a phrase he has used so 
often that he surely has it all set up in type for regular 
use 1) we must remember that the whole gist of the matter 
is the strength of the forces which counter-attacked ; a mere 
rearguard action, in which a coupMe of battalions hold the 
advance of a division in a narrow place, may be so described. 
When the enemy says he has taken so many prisoners 
exactly, or that after hard fighting (the German word resem- 
bles the English word "bitter" and is invariably so trans- 
lated, though the English word "bitter" means something 
quite different), then we may take it that the place which 
he claims to have entered, he really has entered. 
To conclude, while the business is on, our judgment has no 
positive foundation ; we cannot tell the comparative losses 
or even the comparative forces e.aga-<ed, but wa know more 
or les? the \]:n'M jf reiiicy ; we know what cannot be true, 
and we also know wha'. miy be true. 
Civilian Opinion 
The second matter is really mire important, I mean the 
steadying of civilian opinion under the present and coming 
strain. It would be exactly of the same imoartance if ws 
n\d no news at all, or if we had the fullest and most detailed 
de5:riptio.i of the whole action on both sides from day to 
dav. 
The enemy is working quite as much on civilian moral 
as he is upon the existing power of the armies. A mere re- 
sume of tlie German Press will teach you that. Our Press 
has been at tine^ seisatioaal, and has prophesied both good 
and evil magnificently, but it is nothing to the German 
Press in this regard. The German Press has announced 
impending victory — victory in the next few days — I know 
not how often — certainly twenty times — since the huge 
German blunder of tlie Marne. 
Well, the German Press is very much under orders, and if 
it does this kind of thing, it does it in order to affect a civilian 
moral in the countries of its opponents. Our counter to such 
policy ought to be simple enough. It would be absolutely 
simple were we a completely disciplined society ; the ideal in 
time of war. We have simply to neglect the whole hypnotic 
effect. 
The enemy may advance, he may enter towns, exercise 
no mitter what cruelties (there was no limit to these), occupy 
no matter what territory, destroy no matter how much, of 
what we had hitherto thought part and parcel of the in- 
heritance of Europe. ' 
All that is upon quite another clane froT. th2 major issue, 
which is whether the Ailied Armies remain in being and stand 
re.idy tor ultimate reinforcement. So ioiig as th^v are in 
being, and can maintain thjms'lves prepa^'el for that roia- 
forcement, the rest, though enormous, is negligible. 
Jud^ nent is wholly founded upon degree. Victory or 
defeat in this war is compared with all its concomitant 
strains indefinitely more important. Not a capital city, nor 
twenty great monuments from the past, nor even so strict 
an economic suffering as the German Empire now happily 
undergoes, applied to us, is, compared with victory, any 
more than the wetting of one's clothes in thi putting out of 
a fire which threatens all our property and the lives of one's 
family. Of those who do not understand this truth — it is 
useless to appeal to those who can never get out of their 
little province and think only the crude sensationalism which 
is their life — there is no present power in the State to 
control their dangerous and sometimes disastrous effect. 
The only thing that one can say to such is that their 
own skins are no^- in peril, and that they would do well to 
consider those skins. But to the many who still live more 
or less in terms of the old Europe, and still think of a diplo- 
matic CO npromise and of a signed peace with negotiation 
or what -not for the base of it, one can point out this now 
self-evident truth ; that the battle at present engaged will 
either leave Europe a respecter of treaties and a united 
civilisation through our victory, or will result in such a 
viJitory fpr the enemv as ends all securitv, and begins a 
ruinous and probably rapid dr^cline of our civilisation as a 
whole. They must not, even unconsciously, favour so 
terrible an issue. 
Postcript 
Tuesday. J me 4th. 
The communiques of the last 36 hours, since this article 
was written, show an aoproach to stabilisation of the line 
between Soissons and the .Marne. FaveroUes was recovered 
yesterday. There is some retire nent west of Soissons but 
no considerable modification of this front. 
Notice 
THE Board of Trade having forbidden distribution 
of newspapers "on sale or return" on or after 
lune 24th, Land & Water after the issue of 
June 20 will be obtainable to order only. We par- 
ticularly request all ouc readers who have not already 
done so to place an order for regular delivery whh 
their newsagents, or to fill in the subscription form 
which accompanies this issue. 
