LAND ^ WATER 
October 24, 19 18 
LAND&WATER 
5 Chancery Lane, London, JV.C.z. Tel. Holbtm 2828 
THURSDAY, 
OCTOBER 24, 1^18 
Contents 
PAGE 
It's Qi'iTE Easy. General (Car- 
toon) . . 
Raemaekers 
I 
Current Events 
2 
A War cf A'ovement 
Hilaire Belloc 
3" 
What is Victory ? . . 
Arthur Pollen 
6 
Soldiers of Fortune 
J. 0. P. Bland 
8 
The Ramshackle Empir 
• . . 
Sir Valentine Chi 
rol 10 
Allied Subjects in 
CONSTAN- 
tinople 
. . 
Henry Mcrgcnth 
lu 12 
Colonel Alderson's Imagination 
Jerrold 
13 
Childhood in Retrospect 
J. C Squire 
15 
The Theatre : Rpxana 
W. J. Turner 
16 
The Reader's Diary 
Peter Bell 
18 
Speculation Rampant 
Hartley Withers 
20 
Household Notes . . , 
22 
Notes on Kit 
24 
Victory 
PRESIDENT WILSON S Note last week appeared 
too late to allow of more than a slight reference 
here. Its reception in all the Allied countries was 
favourable without qualification ; its argument 
followed the lines which we had presumed to be 
inevitable ; the Germans have formally answered it, but their 
answer gets nowhere. We are very glad to see that there 
is no response to the obvious German attempt to rouse 
jealousy of President Wilson in Allied countries; even 
those timid persons who trembled lest the innocent President- 
should fail to perceive things which were as clear as day- 
light to themselves were reassured by his clear and crushing 
Note. The Allies, who desire no better spokesman than 
President Wilson has proved himself to be, are not going 
to be set at loggerheads by the Germans. If there are 
any small points we desire to clear up between ourselves, 
we certainly shall not allow them to obstruct our vision of 
the great common purpose we have : victory. That will 
have been achieved when we are in a position, and the Ger- 
mans acknowledge it by submission, to impose upon the enemy 
those terms which we regard as the essentials of a just settle- 
ment and the foundations of future security. It will be 
attained not necessarily when we get to Beriin and march 
Lord Curzon's Bengal Lancers down Unter den Linden ; 
but when the Germans see that it is quite inevitable that 
we shall be able to do so if the war goes on and consequently 
throw up the sponge. When that point is reached what we 
shall get (however its name may be disguised) will be vir- 
tually unconditional surrender. We shall be in a position 
to dictate what we think right and the Germans will not 
be in a position to resist us. The sooner they realise the 
situation and give in, the more bloodshed they wiU save ; 
but President Wilson's clear-cut remarks about the armistice 
must have made it very plain to them that however they go 
to work, whether by sword or by tongue, the Allies do net 
propose to allow them to escape from the iron gin in which 
they have deliberately put their feet. 
Austria Breaking Up 
President Wilson's answer to Austria is less crushing and 
less detailed than his answer to Germany ; but there is 
less to be said, and it is quite adequate. When he formulated 
his fourteen points he was careful to leave his references to 
the subject-nations of Austria-Hungary sufficiently vague to 
admit of. a Home Rule solution. President Wilson— like Mr. 
Lloyd George— never wished to break up "the ramshackle 
Empire " by force. He believed in " self-determination," which 
phrase connotes a nation's right to define the limits of its 
own self-government. Since then the horizon has changed. 
Both Britain and America have recognised the Czecho- 
slovaks {anglice, Bohemians) as a belligerent nation with 
an. independent Government and army ; and the Southern 
Slavs are now, to all intents and purposes, on the same 
footing. Until, therefore, the rights of these two nations 
have been recognised by the Hapsburgs it is no good nego- 
tiating with them. Events are marching so rapidly that 
there will soon be no Dual Empire to negotiate with. We 
observed last week that the Hapsburgs were at the "last 
gasp." Since that date we have heard of declarations of 
independence by Bohemians at Prague, by Jugo-Slavs, and 
by Hungary. The Hungarian move (if it be real) should not 
be taken at its face value. If it has happened it merely 
means that the Magyars (who govern a majority subject popu- 
lation) desire to keep their own subject-races down, whatever 
may happen to Austria. Meanwhile, the Germans of Austria 
are showing an inclination to ask for federation in the German 
Empire — a thing which tough Lutheran Prussia has always 
regarded with apprehension lest the German balance should 
be shifted. The Dual Empire is not such a hopeless hotch- 
potch as its friends make out ; and a glance at the map 
will convince any man that (although scattered racial islets 
exist whose claims will not be satisfied) a territorial arrange- 
ment which gives independence to Bohemia-Moravia, Italia 
Irredentaa to Italy, Transylvania to Rumania, GaUcia 
to Poland, ard throws the South Slav provinces into a 
Serbian union will not pn duce a very complicated map. 
The Rescue of Bruges 
It seems at first sight strange that, when millions of 
men have been killed and thousands arfe dying daily, 
we should still feel so intense a concern for the fate of 
stones and mortar in the area of war. The statement 
of a German general, when Rheims was being des- 
troyed, that no cathedral in France was worth the life of a 
single Prussian grenadier, shocked civilisation ; yet most 
men would have been hard put to it to say why it shocked 
them, since all hold human life to be the most sacred of 
things. Yet the instinct was sound which classed the 
remark as a fellow of Bliicher's obser\'ation on London, 
"What a city to loot!", a remark which would not have 
occurred to anyone who had not the barbarian lust of des- 
'truction and the barbarian jealousy of the triumphs of human 
achievement. The way in which to test it for oneself is not 
to say "Would I rather kill my uncle or destroy Rheims ? " 
or "Would I die to save Rheims ? " ; but "Would I take the 
risk, not the certainty, of death to save Rheims, or the Abbev, 
or such and such a monument ? " The affirmative answer is 
given every day when the material object involved is not 
half so precious. None of us would take a ton of coal if it 
meant killing a specified man, and no miner would go down 
to die for the sake of a ton of coal. But every year's work- 
ings of the mines and the railways, every year's building 
and navigation, means — and mus.t mean — many deaths, and 
both the community and the men involved think it worth 
it. The monuments of P'rance and Belgium are on a higher 
plane ; they arc the embochments of human aspiration, 
a perpetual challenge and criterion handed down to us from 
ages which were in some respects superior to our own. If they 
go we cannot replace them, and our whole nature will be the 
poorer for their loss. Even soldiers, therefore, who carry their 
lives daily in their hands, rejoiced when they found that 
Douai was intact and that much remained of Cambrai. The 
preservation of Ostend may be welcomed for other than • 
spiritual or aesthetic reasons ; at worst, it is the home of a 
great m^ny harmless people, and its walls cost money to 
build. But the salvation of Bruges is an event worthy to 
be celebrated. Had its belfry, its square, its Hotel de Ville, its 
Hospital, its old streets, its canal bridges, gone the way of 
so many things on which the Germans have laid tbeir brutal 
hands, the loss would have beenielt and deplored by a remcvte 
posterity to which thc'war and all its issues may be merely 
a tale of things "done long ago, and ill done." 
