Land & Water 
July I 8 , 1 9 1 8 
LAND & WATER 
5 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON, W.C.2 
Telephone : HOLBORN zSiS. 
THURSDAY, JULY i8, 1918. 
Contents 
Munnan Expedition. (Cartoon.) By Raemaekers 
The Outlook 
The Second Battle of the Marne. By H. Belloc 
Too Strong to Fight. By Arthur Pollen 
Von Kuhlmann. By J. Coudurier de Chassaigne 
Venice. (With illustrations) 
Turkish Conspiracy— X. By Henry Morgenthau 
The Land— III. By Agricola 
A Rise in Bacon. By J. C. Squire 
Reader's Diary 
Coaling the Fleet. By Lewis R. Freeman 
The British Prize Court. By E. S. Roscoe . 
Household Notes 
Notes on Kit 
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The Outlook 
As we go to press comes the important news that 
the enemy has launched what looks like his 
main offensive. The attack opened at dawn on 
Monday last, July 15th, and was conducted 
upon a very broad front of over fifty miles, 
the enemy succeeding upon his right in crossing the River 
Marne at several places and establishing himself upon the 
south of that streahi over a belt of some two to three miles 
wide. The situation was well in hand at the moment when 
information was given in. the House of Commons — that is, 
upon Monday night — but it had so far developed so little 
that nothing useful can be said about it, save that so far 
the Commander-in-Chief was satisfied. This information 
was given by Mr. Bonar Law, who also told the House that 
the Prime Minister had been in communication with General 
Foch by telephone communication, and the news thus given 
to the House was the most recent obtainable. There is, of 
course, still doubt as to whether an attack even upon this 
scale is the main effort of the enemy, and the public has 
been officially warned not to take it for granted until further 
identification of the attacking enemy divisions is effected. 
If there are found, as it is believed, something like sixty 
divisions in action, we may take it that the enemy's main 
blow is being delivered. 
It is obvious that the threat to Paris, though it cannot 
be the main strategical object of the enemy, has very high 
importance. There is always a tendency in time of war 
on the part of the general public to exaggerate political 
elements, and on the part of the student of war to under- 
estimate. In this particular case the elements of the situa- 
tion are so simple that neither is likely to misapprehend 
them. The enemy is known to be utterly without considera- 
tion of European convention and tradition ; he would destroy 
the greatest monuments of the past with as little hesitation 
as he would murder women and children or, neutral sailors 
upon the higji seas. His sole object is to achieve victory 
without consideration for what the need of the future of 
Europe or, indeed, of himself may be ; and he is, further, 
remarkably unintelligent in his judgment of the general 
feelings of the world in such affairs. Therefore we may be 
quite certain that if he could get within long range of Paris 
he would proceed to the destruction of that city. He will 
argue justly, Paris being the main centre of French com- 
munications, as well as the capital, anything that interrupted 
its life was to his military advantage. But this would not 
be his main policy ; his main policy would be the pohtical 
one of putting pressure upon the French by the systematic 
destruction of their chief city, and he will proceed to this the 
moment it is within his physical power. 
* * * 
Now, action of this kind would have a prodigious effect 
upon the war at this stage in its development. And the 
argument that the destruction of Paris — or, rather, of its 
great monuments — is indifferent in strategy because strategy 
only concerns itself with the destruction of existing armies, 
is negligible. Such an acl would at once present to the world 
two final theses, which have existed from the very beginning 
of the war, but which have been confused in most minds^. 
These two theses are, on the German side, that a complete 
contempt for civilisation and its traditions, the mere use of • 
force and guile pushed to an extreme limit ensures the pre- 
eminence of those who use such weapons, and this thesis 
would prove true if the destruction of Paris brought about 
the disintegration of the French resistance. But the other 
thesis is equally formidable. It is the thesis that any social 
system which acts in such a fashion must be destroyed. 
We have only to suppose the French firm, in spite of this 
last outrage, and it is clear that the Allies, their peoples, 
and their Governments, will be compelled not only to con- 
quer, but to punish. There would be no room for generalisa- 
tion upon the hypothetical rights of a converted Germany, 
and all the rest of -it. And those who have seen things in 
such a false perspective during the last year, those who 
have believed a compromise still possible, will be silenced 
for good and all. 
m « * 
The full text of von Capelle's Reichstag statement on the 
U-boat campaign is in some respects the most striking example 
yet given of "the fact or the exaggeration." It was the 
Admiral's duty to dispel the irnpression created by the 
monthly figures published here. He did so by telling his 
audience that the Allied world was now poorer by 18,000,000 
tons of shipping ; that the losses were- still at the rate of be- 
tween 5 and 6 big ships a day ; that our shipbuilding could 
not compete with this loss ; that our need for shipping was 
in the meantime increasing, as was exemplified by the fact 
that, for every American landed in France 6 tons of shipping 
would be hypothecated. It could not be long, therefore, 
before the U-boat justified itself by an Allied famine or 
collapse. The facts are that the world's total war loss is 
under thirteen and a half million tons, .of which certainly 
not more than twelve could have been caused by submarine. 
Next, a loss of five "big" ships a day would mean 25,000 
to 30,000 tons a day, whereas in April it was just over 10,000 
tons, and in May under 12,000. An American soldier landed 
in France does not need six tons of shipping to keep him 
going, but hardly four. And, as for our general need, 
it is notorious, first, that increased food production has les- 
sened it materially and, secondly, that the reorganisation 
in the handhng and turning over of ships has increased the 
cargo yield by between 30 and 50 per cent. Finally, though 
we have not the official American figures for May or June, 
it seems certain that over 194,000 gross tons were completed 
in the first month, and over 230,000 in the latter. Adding 
the British figures to this, we see that the destruction and 
replacement lines have crossed, and that on the two months 
we are go, 000 tons to the good. On Independence Day 
alone, the United States launched over 286,000 tons, a fine 
evidence of the enthusiasm which the American workmen 
' are exhibiting. 
* * * 
Thus Capelle exaggerates U-boat sinkings to date by over 
fifty per cent. He tells a flat imtruth in saying that current 
shipbuilding cannot keep pace with current losses ; he over- 
states the current rate of loss to the extent of more than 
doubling it ; he overstates the demand of the American 
army for shipping by fifty per cent. The state of Germany 
must be pretty bad when it is necessary to maintain pubhc 
moral by methods so crude as to give away the state of that 
moral so egregiously. And it is worth noting that, while 
on the other side we have these grotesque claims made for 
the German submarine, there is a systematic suppression of 
all news as to the actual American soldiers sent across the 
sea. Mr. Baker's figures, referred to in these columns last 
week, have not been reproduced in a single German paper. 
There is good reason for their suppression. They are not 
only a complete refutation of Capelle, they reduce all the 
official statements about American belhgerency to absurdity. 
With a milhon men in France, and more following at the rate 
of a quarter of a million men a month, a change in the military 
situation is obviously taking place, which reflects the com- 
plete change in the sea situation effected by the adoption 
of the convoy principle a year ago. Now that we know from 
the First Lord's recent Grafton Galleries speech that the 
two mine barriers across the North Sea and Channel are being 
pushed to completion, we have every right to hope that a 
further change, at least as striking and effective, must soon 
be apparent. If this hope is realised, we shall once more 
see the position on land developing correspondingly in our 
- favour. 
