Land & Water 
August I, 1918 
LAND&WATER 
5 Chancery Lane, London, W.C.z. Tel. HoliomiSiS 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 19' 8 
Contents 
The First Rolxd. (Cartoon.) . 
CiRRENT Events 
ThK CiKRM an KeTRUAI 
Can Sl'bmarixes Combine ? 
Hfrzoi;. The Trade Bernmardi. 
March of the Czecho-Slovaks . 
TiRKisH Conspiracy — XI... 
The Magneto 
(iAI-LERIES 
The Re.ader's Diary 
HoisEHOT.D Notes 
Notes on Kit 
By Raemaekers 
p.viii-: 
I 
By H. Belloc 
By ■\. Hollen 
By Ralph W. Fafje 
B\- M. I.oubicii 
By H. Morgentliaii 
By Enid Bagnrld 
By J. C. Squire 
6 
S 
10 
12 
1,5 
i() 
1 8 
20 
22 
The German Retreat 
THK week has been marked, up to the moment of 
f;oing to press, by the final decision of the enemy 
to retire from his positions upon the Marne and 
to fall back upon some prepared position between 
Soissons and Rheims, which has doubtless been 
long established by our a\dators, but on which there is no 
public information. This movement, which the enemy had 
long hesitated to accept (perhaps because of the political 
effect which it might have within the German Empire, or 
perhaps because he hoped for some reversal of the situation) 
was begun under the cover of darkness last Friday, and is 
continuing at the moment of writing. The eleven miles 
upon the Marne itself which dominate and cut the great 
railway line to the East were given up, and the movement 
continued uninterruptedly northward during the subsequent 
forty-eight hours. The prime cause of the enemy's taking 
this decision was the Franco-American pressure upon the 
little town of Fere. This town was at once the railhead 
of the enemy, his principal advahce ba^e and the nodal 
point on which the road communications of half the sadient 
converged. It was impossible to hold anything to the south 
of it when once its use as a centre of supply had been rendered 
too dangerous by Allied fire. For a whole week the enemy's 
chief efforts had been made to save the approaches to Fere, 
and had thrown in very strong reinforcements by Oulchy- 
le-Chateau, which covers Fere upon the west and to the 
north of that place. But he was beaten out of the p)ositions 
he had taken, and on three successive days the range under 
which the cross-roads of Fere were held by the Franco- 
American artillery diminished from nine to seven and seven 
to four thousand yards, after which point the place was 
clearly untenable. It was entered upon the evening of 
Sunday last, July 28th, and on that day the hne of retreat, 
which was still continuing, ran due north of Ville, and was 
so drawn that only at one point were any enemy guns within 
nine thousand yards of the main eastern railway, and this 
important Allied communication may now be regarded as 
secure. The number of divisions identified in the whole of 
the operations, from the beginning of the great German 
offensive a fortnight ago to the moment of writing, is just on 
seventy, an identification which shows that the plan of the 
last great attack was drawn to the scale of the first great 
venture in March. Such numbers do not leave a sufficient 
margin to the enemy for a second effort of the same kind. 
There is, further, this great difference between the present 
situation and that of four months ago— that the Allied 
strength is now steadily increasing. 
Misrepresentation as an Art 
It is a constant source of surprise to British readers that 
opinions hostile to the Government and to Imperial policy 
are so cjindidly pubhshed in the German Press. The case ■ 
of Maximilian Harden, with his brutal assertion that there is 
no disagreement between the British 'and German Govern- 
ment about the criminal nature of the invasion of Belgium, 
is a case in point. How can German moral — the foundation 
of which is a mental enslavement to the Imperial military 
machine — survive such crushing indictments ? English 
people still believe that opinion is swayed and actually formed 
by argument in the daily Press. Xlie German Government 
realises that all opinion is founded upon facts. It is, there- 
fore, to distortion and misrepresentation of facts that their 
propaganda, positive and negative, is directed. This is why 
the success of the submarine is habitually exaggerated by 
100 per cent., and the man-power of the Allies understated 
by 50 per cent. On the eve of the offensive, to the collapse of 
which American skill and valour lias contributed so signally, 
the Lokal Anzeiger published a moderately worded article to 
prove that the American forces in France were insignificant 
in numbers, and must remain insignificant at least until 
1920. They were no doubt composed of men of fine physique 
and of high courage. But, being untrained, they were little 
better than raw militia, without discipline or coherence. 
They could never be turned into professional soldiers, and 
were therefore negligible. They could never be a decisive 
factor. The events of the last ten days will, we may be 
sure, be so presented that it will be some time before the 
German public realises the difference between these views 
and the truth. It must take time before this truth goes 
home, and Germany realises the incalculable value to the 
Allies of a reinforcement, the first ten million of which will 
be Grade I. men, with a high aptitude for the arts of fighting. 
Lord Lansdowne's Lotteries 
Lord Lansdowne — a man. it seems, of varied activities — 
has been introducing a Bill legitimising lotteries for war 
charities. We can understand people thinking that it is 
unpleasant that money for- absolutely necessary expenditure 
should have to be raised by ingenious appeals of every sort 
to private people ; but if the Government is unable to make 
provision, then it has to be made by somebod\' else ; and, in 
any case, there are instances of charities which are quite 
deserving, but which a Government might well feel not 
entitled to subsidise. We can also understand people thinking 
that it is a pity that there should be people whom we cannot 
tempt to subscribe unless we offer them a chance of profit. 
But there are such people ; and we most of us have a tinge 
of the get-rich-quick speculator in us ; and, looking facts in 
the face, we cannot deny that lotteries for war charities arc 
likely to be highly productive. There remains, therefore, 
the one objection of which most has been heard ; the objec- 
tion of those who scream if they hear the word "lottery." 
Very often they are people who have held, at church bazaars 
and elsewhere. . lotteries (camouflaged as "raffles") which 
have only • differed from the ordinary lottery by offering, 
as prizes, utterly useless cushions or walking-sticks, instead 
of highly useful Treasury Notes. Still more often, beyond 
doubt, they are people who (during rubber booms and oil 
booms) have bought shares which they knew nothing about, 
purely as a gamble and in the very spirit of the lottery- 
ticket-taker. One form of gambUng differs little from 
another. And though we do not desire — we do not think 
there is much risk of it — the population of this country to 
sjjend as much time thinking about lotteries as it used to 
take scrutinising "evening" papers for the latest "prices," 
we cannot see the slightest moral or social objection to a few 
lotteries specially authorised for particular purposes. As a 
matter of fact, some war charity lotteries have quietly pro- 
ceeded without anyone taking the slightest notice of them. 
There are London clubs which have continued their tradi- 
tional Derby sweeps, dcoting the bulk of the proceeds to 
charity. Is it that the real fear of those who oppose legalisa- 
tion of lotteries is that the working classes may be tempted 
to waste their substance ? If so — to say nothing more — we 
think that they exaggerate the attractiveness of ticket- 
buying as a habit as compared with other methods of specula- 
tive, or even non-speculative, expenditure. 
