Land & Water 
June 20, 191 8 
LAND & WATER 
5 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, W.C.2 
Telephone : HOLBORN lixt. 
THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 191 8. 
Contents 
PAGE 
The American Soldier. (Cartoon.) By Racmaekers 
The Outlook 
The Offensive Against Italy. By H. Belloc 
Germany's Lost Illusions. By Arthur Pollen 
Goeben and Breslau. By Henry Morgenthau 
America at War. Bv Crawford Vaughan 
At Death-Grips with'the Wolf. Bv L. P. Jacks 
Mr. Wells and World Peace. By J. C. Squire 
An English Prophet and Seer 
The",Motor Class. By Enid Bagnold 
A Drop of Leaf. By Etienne - 
Sinaia Palace. (\\'ith photograph.) By G. C. Williamson 20 
Household Notes 22 
Notes on Kit xv 
3 
7 
9 
12 
I.? 
1.5 
i(> 
17 
r8 
The Outlook 
THE last phase of the great enemy "^offensive — the 
fifth of the blows delivered upon . the Western 
front — was launched against the Italian lines at 
7.30 a.m. last Saturday, after a prehminary 
bombardment which lasted as a maximum for 
four hours, and upon some sectors was maintained for not 
more than an hour and a half. This preparation was of 
exactly the same kind as those with" which the German 
offensives in France had already been familiar ; it is con- 
ducted mainly with gas' shells and directed far behind 
the lines upon towns and road-crossings hitherto immune 
from enemy fire. The total number of divisions used by the 
enemy was not less than sixty. 
The main effort of the enemy was made, as necessity 
demanded, against the northern or mountain sectors, where 
an advance would lead him to the Italian communications 
and produce a great result. The pressure was particularly 
heavy on the Asiago Plateau, where it was met by Italian, 
French, and British troops with success, and thrown back 
duriiig the whole of the first two days. Nothing of conse- 
quence was done to the west of this position. To the east of 
it there were powerful attacks on both sides of the Brenta 
Valley, but the Italian troops completely repulsed them and 
recovered nearly all lost ground on the few points where a 
very shallow retirement had been necessary. Upon the 
Piave itself the enemy crossed in three places. 
* * * 
It need hardly be pointed out that the extreme importance 
of this action is upon the political side. There are many 
things to emphasise this. Our Italian allies suffered a severe 
reverse during the great offensive against them last autumn.- 
They are also numerically the weakest of the Western group. 
They find munitionment more difficult, from the lack of 
coal, etc., than the other nations defending civilisation. 
Their resistance has the more moral effect. 
Again, the enemy now attacking them is far less heartily 
in the \var than is the German Empire, which is for the 
moment his master. The Austro-Hungarian forces are made 
up of extraordinarily different races, the majority of which 
have no attachment to the German cause, though most of 
them have perhaps some attachment to the monarchy which 
governs them. Further, the Austro-Hungarian territory has 
suffered more severely from the prolonged strain of the war 
than has any other of the belligerent countries, save portions 
jof the Russian Empire, which do not now concfern us. All 
these things combined mean that serious disappointment, 
coupled with heavy losses in the present attack, would have 
a most powerful result upon opinion. 
If Austro-Hungary collapses, the German Empire would 
be in a far worse case than are the Western Allies since the 
defection of Russia. But for the folly. of Austro-Hungary 
in supporting Prussianised Germany, the war could not have 
been successfully attempted by Germany, and would not even 
have been possible. With the disappearance (even if it were 
only in the shape of a half-hearted effort) of Austro-Hungary, 
the German Empire would be doomed. 
The past week has been marked by several important 
utterances on both sides. For the Allies, Mr. Asquith and 
the American Secretary of State have spoken very much to 
the point. The luncheon to the former Prime Minister at 
the Aldwych Club, last week, had a double significance ; it 
was not only a tribute to a leading statesman, but it was an 
expression of opinion by business men and men of the world 
on recent methods of discrediting political opponents. 
Mr. Asquith was right in laying emphasis on the present 
critical state of affairs. Since the battle of Marne, it is the 
gravest crisis through which the Allies have passed, and 
until Rupprecht of Bavaria's Reserves are used up and we 
have seen the end of the Austrian offensive, it is unwise to 
take a too bright view of the future. On the other hand, 
there is no occasion -for pessimism. Time, Right, and the 
United States are on our side, and if the enemy be held for 
a few more weeks, the situation will be vastly different. 
But, whatever happens, to -use Mr. Asquith's words, "it is 
not going in the faintest degree to weaken our allegiance to 
the great purposes for which we have been fighting or our 
determination in foul as much as in fair weather to press 
on to the final accomplishment." 
"True Prussianism and the idea of an enduring and just 
peace among the nations can never be brought into harmony. 
They are the very antipodes of human thought." These 
are Mr. Lansing's words, and were it necessary to comment 
on them, all that need be said is to suggest, that alongside of 
them should be read the contemptible words of brag which 
the Kaiser periodically addresses to his family and his 
ministers. "Tens of thousands may fall on his right hand 
and tens of thousands on his left hand. We offer no 
apologies for reproducing the following passage from Mr. 
Lansing's speech. It is, of course, a familiar truth, but it is 
well people in this country should understand that the same 
truth is recognised and accepted in America : 
It is hardly open to be debated, in the light of subsequent 
events, that the philosophical and political ideals taught lor 
years from university platforms, from pulpits, and througli 
the piinted word, to young and old in Germany, excited in 
the German people an insolent pride of blood, and infused 
into their national being an all-absorbing ambition to prove 
themselves super-men, chosen by natural superiority, by 
Divine mandate, to be the rulers of the earth. Not only in 
Germany, but among those of German descent in other 
lands, has irtiis pernicious belief spread, linking the Germans 
everywhere to the Fatherland, in the hope that they would 
be considered worthy to share the future gjory of the masters 
of the world. 
The "insolent pride of blood," to which the American 
Secretary of State alluded, was curiously enough illustrated 
in the identical London papers which reported his speech 
by a delivery, a few days previously, of the German War 
Minister, General von Stein in the Reichstag. General von 
Stein talked of "our incomparable Army" and of "the 
Entente beginning to recognise and admit their heavy defeat." 
He sneered at "the saving help of America" in the same way 
that the Kaiser sheered at General French's "contemptible 
little Army," thereby bestowing on the British soldier a 
proud title. Who to-day would not be one of the "Old 
Contemptibles " ? Perhaps in time to come, to be one of 
America's "Saving Helps" will have the same high honour. 
General von Stein spoke nothing but the truth when he 
said : "The enemy is not yet prepared for peace. It is still 
the day of the sword, but the sword has kept sharp." More 
than that, von Stein ! The sword continues to be sharpened ; 
the sparks still fly from the grindstone ; and before there is 
peace, Germany must taste the sharpness of that sword, 
must test the temper of its steel in a very different way from 
that contemplated by the boastful German War Minister. 
* ie it. 
Readers of L.\xd & W.\ter are very familiar by this time 
with the stories by Centurion which have appeared on these 
pages at intervals during the past two years. They are all 
based upon fact, and in process of time many of these 
plain tales from the battlefield will be accepted as historical 
evidence for the* actual incidents and sequences of events 
of the famous actions which they describe. The book is 
dedicated to the West Country Regiments, for the writer is 
himself a Wiltshire man, who "like the rest of the children of 
Wessex, believes Wessex to be God's country and Thomas 
Hardy its prophet. Centurion's volume bears the title 
Gentlemen at Arms (Hcinemann, 6s.). It is to be published 
to-day, though last Tuesday, the anniversary of Waterioo, 
would perhaps have been a more appropriate date, consider- 
ing the feat of arms which it commemorates. 
