LAND&WATEK 
5 Chancery Lane, London, fF.C.2. Tel. Holiom ziii 
THURSDAY, OCTOBER lo, 1918 
Contents 
PAGE 
A Word from the Wise 
(Cartoon.) 
Raemaekers i 
CuKRF.NT Events 
2 
Military Significance 
of 
tHE 
German Offer 
Hilaire Bellcc 3 
Ekemv Crisis in the We 
3T 
Edmund Dane 5 
The Balkan Situation 
Sir Valentine Chirol 7 
DURAZZO AND AFTER 
Arthur Pollen 9 
The Gallipou Campaign 
Henn,' Morgenthau 10 
The Fifth Man 
Centurion 12 
Four Poems 
Enid Bagnold 14 
Two Escapes 
J. C. Squire 15 
The Theatre 
W. J. Turner 16 
The Reader's Diary 
Peter Bell 18 
The Sinews of War 
Hartley Withers 20 
Household Notes ... 
22 
Notes on Kit 
24 
The German Peace Offer 
GERMANY has made a peace offer. Prince Max 
of Baden, who (as Chancellor) has been put at 
the head of a pseudo-democratic government, 
has e.xpressed his country's wilHngness to accept 
President Wilson's programme as "a basis" for 
negotiation. Beaten in the field, deserted by one allj', and 
threatened with the desertion of another, Prussia now plays 
the cards we have all expected her to play. She tells us 
(r) that she has democratised herself, and (2) that she is 
willing to negotiate with our terms as "a basis." Unfor- 
tunately, neither of her concessions takes us very 'much 
farther. Her democratisation is on the surface. She has 
given posts to majority Socialists and she has given the 
Chancellorship to one of the ^ew civilised German princes. 
But democratic control and ministerial responsibility are 
still out of sight ; all that has been definitely promised is 
that in purely non-military matters civilians shall be allowed 
the right of having their opinions considered — which, prac- 
tically, marks a very small advance indeed. The auto- 
cracy and its military- Junker buttresses remain in 
control, although they have with reluctant graciousness con- 
ceded the German people the right, not of decision, but of 
expressing opinion. And the acceptance of President 
Wilson's terms as "a basis" means nothing at all. W'hat is 
a basis ? When the Austrian Peace Note talked in this 
strain President Wilson's answer was that the terms of the 
Allies were before the enemy. If they cared to accept our 
terms the war would end. If thej' did not, the war would 
go on. To draw up what we believe to be the elements of 
a just settlement and then to allow these elements to be 
treated as mere theoretic resolutions, the mere formal agenda 
of a conference, would be to stultify ourselves. Mr. Lloyd 
George in the spring named in detail Britain's terms ; the 
President has named, in a more general way, America's 
terms. The Germans have accepted neither. They have 
merely (Prince Max' says "magnanimously") proposed, whilst 
retaining their army intact, preserving the autocracy 
and saying no word about Austria -Hungary, where the war 
originated, asked us to suspend our victorious operations 
whilst we discuss with them the application of President 
Wilson's principles. If the discussion comes to anything 
it will come to a compromise. If it comes to nothing it 
will have given them time to reconstruct their defences 
and prepare for a withdrawal upon a shorter line. 
inc xi^xpcciea tnat nappenea 
The extraordinary thing to us i'^ that certain English 
papers should treat the new German offer as a surprise, 
when the whole world has known for a long time that it was 
coming. The British Press has been sa3'ing for months 
that the Germans this autumn would lay themselves out 
to split the Allies and to divide the Allied peoples. We 
may be permitted, as evidence, to quote our own word^ of 
•August 8th last (two months ago) : 
When the shadow of inevitable defeat begins to creep 
, over Germany we may be certain that, while putting up the 
most desperate military resistance, she will lay herself out 
as she has never yet done to divide the Allied Powers and 
the Allied peoples. . . . When things get worse, a public 
and detailed offer of terms is not inconceiva^le, an offer 
"generous" to an extent not yet dreamt of, but securing 
the domination of the Hapsburgs, the skins and the power 
of tlie HohenzoUcrns. . . . We know what would happen. 
Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Snowden would certainly say, 
"Here we have a basis for negotiation," and the hope of 
Germany would be that they would get sufficient recruits 
from among our pohticians to secure a serious crumbling of 
pubhc opinion, a crumbling which would begin by im]x'ding 
our effort and end by stopping it. 
That was two months ago ; we reproduce it not as evidence 
of a foresight peculiar to ourselves, but as a specimen of 
what was at the time being written in many British papers. 
We knew this was coming. We knew in July that Germany 
would be "converted" in October. And yet when October 
comes many among us- treat the conversion as .something 
completely unexpected which is to be taken seriously. Let 
the Germans (who are at present engaged, as though to 
show the extent to which the military chiefs have been 
curbed, in burning one ancient French city after another) 
agree to retire from all occupied territories, to yield Alsace- 
Lorraine and Posen, and to give the Czechs, the Rumanians, 
and the Jugo-Slavs the right of choosing under which flag 
they will live, and we will believe that their desire for a 
just settlement and a League of Nations is genuine. Faihng 
such concessions, we must go on until Germany has done 
as _ Bulgaria has done — surrendered unconditionally, to 
receive from us no less and no more than justice. It would 
not be a bad thing if the Allied Governments reiterated 
their maximum (which are also their minimum) terms once 
a week until the war ends. Our enemies, and some of our- 
selves, seem to have very short memories. 
Trafalgar Square 
We cannot congratulate the Government upon its action 
in turning Trafalgar Square into a very poor imitation of a 
ruined village in Flanders.* This is not the first- — though 
we trust it will be tl:e last — of a series of publicity 
devices which have been setting the teeth of patriotic 
people on edge. The motive is, ' no doubt, excellent : 
the Government desires to encourage the public to buy 
War Bonjds. But, in the first place, the public which 
buys, or is likely to buy, War Bonds is a newspaper-reading 
public, and does not need this reminder that there is a war 
on, and that the Germans are destructive vandals. In the 
second place, almost every family in the United ICingdom 
has now lost members in the wai^, and is consequently in 
no need of a miniature Earl's Court to assure it that a war 
is actually racing. And, in the third place, if it be argued 
that, granted all this, visual pictures impress people as nothing 
else does, we must reply that one paltry little show in 
Trafalgar Square can have very little effect upon the popula- 
tion at large. We do not know what these plaster ruins 
have cost in labour and material ; nor do we know from 
whose fertile advertising brain the idea of them sprang. 
But we do feel pretty, certain that the receipts directly 
assignable to this enterprise will not be proportioned 
to cost, and will decidedly not be sufficient to justify 
its vulgarity. Nelson stands on his column above this 
grotesque exhibition. We can only trust that if he looks 
downwards at all he will put his telescope to his blind 
eye ! 
