LAND es? WATER 
December 12, 1918 
MAYENCt, AND THE UPPER RHINE 
Mayence is a place from which an advance may be set out. 
This sentence is written witliout any relation to the present 
circumstances, in which there is no question of an enemy 
attack, for the enemy is beaten to pieces ; but it is written 
to show what the political meaning of occupation of Mayence 
rriay be. 
thef 
If we look at the map we^see that Mayence stands upon a 
point of the Rhine thrust far forward eastward. That in 
itself is important. But there is more than this by far. 
Mayence stands at the end of that long span of the Middle 
Rhine, open, full of wealth and communication, which runs 
up right past the fertile belt of Alsace to the south-eastward 
of Basle. Below Mayence you have that gorge of the Rliine 
which separates the valley of the river into two strategic- 
ally different halves. On the west you have the mass of high 
land which is first the Hochwald and then the Hunsruck 
on the east of the Taunus. To hold Mayence is to hold 
the flain of the Upper Rhine. You hold and close the 
obstacle above the gorge when you have Mayence and its 
bridge-head. Also, just as Coblenz was formed by tlie meeting 
" ^e Moselle and the Rhine — that is, by the convergence of 
the trade routes upon Gaul towards the Germanics — so Mayence 
was formed b\' the meeting of the Main, and its historically 
very important valley, with the Rhine from the eastward. 
In other words, Mayence is the nodal point of the traffic 
from the Southern and Central Germanics westward towards 
Gaul. Just as Cologne and Coblenz by their historical 
importance have become the meeting-points of a fan of roads 
and railways from the east, and therefore when they are held 
with their bridge-heads control the chief crossings of the Lower 
Rhine, so Mayence has become the last nodal point of the 
Upper Rhine and drains upon itself the railway communica- 
tions and the road communications of the Central and Southern 
Germanics towards France. 
THE GATES OF GERMANY 
The possession of these" bridge-heads, although they lie 
within a hundred miles as the crow flies from point to point — 
a straight line of lOo miles will include both Mayence and 
Cologne — means the holding of the gates into the vanquished 
Gennan Empire. In the days when Vienna controlled a 
more civilised German system and when the Southern Ger- 
manies had not the mastery but the leadership of a better 
society in Central Europe, the gates of approach against that 
power were upon the Upper Rhine, the Black Forest, the 
valley of the Danube. The crossings south of Mayence 
concerned the political and military science of those days. 
But ever since Prussia, to the misfortune of Europe, attempted 
that art of government which she does not understand, 
and ruined the culture and even the decency of her subjects, 
her containment and management must be through the Lower 
Rhine with Mayence as the guarantee that everything above 
Ihe Lower Rhine is securely held. 
Apart from the transversal value of these bridge-heads — 
tliat is, their value for preventing offensive action against 
the Allies and for giving the Allies offensive power against 
any attempt, however belated and futile, of the beaten 
enemy to resist the terms wliich shall be imposed upon him — 
there is the very important question of lateral communica- 
tion. 
Readers of this paper are familiar with the nature of such 
communications and of its especially liigh value when one 
is deahng with great masses of men and their supply. Direct 
or transverse communications are the communications which 
lead from bases up to a front ; the railways, roads, and water- 
ways by which food and munitions and the rest are brought 
up to an agglomeration of armed men and by which the 
sick and the demobilised and, in time of action, the wounded, 
and the empty wagons and cases are returned to the bases. 
But lateral communications are, as we know, equally import- 
ant. By them troops can be moved along the front from left 
to right or vice versa to meet any concentration of an enemy. 
By them stores are distributed from central points along the 
front ; by them is communication kept up between the whole 
of the front line ; and he of two opponents who possesses the 
best lateral communications is, other things being equal, 
the master. Now, it is extremely important to note that 
along the whole course of the Rhine and of the Western 
Germanics beyond the Rhine (WestphaUa, Thuringia with its 
old historical foundations and Swabia and Bavaria) the great 
lateral communications upon which everytlung depended in 
primitive times and upon which in the main movement still 
depends, is the valley of the Rhine itself. Tliuringia com- 
municated with that valley by the only large space of open 
land connected with it from the east, the valley of the Main 
and everything within a hundred miles of the great" river of 
course lived by and depended upon the stream and the roads 
bordering that stream. 
In modem times Jhe lateral communications of the Western 
Germanics, civil and military, consist essentially in the two 
railwa3's which run down either bank of the Rhine. Those 
uniting Cologne, Coblenz, and Mayence on the left bank 
and their opposite suburbs upon the right bank, the right bank 
railwa}' running from Kastel opposite Mayence to Mulheim 
opposite Cologne upon the further side of the river. If you 
?eek for a lateral communication further eastward you find 
it only in the most tortuous form. You must go through 
Frankfort and round by Geissen and then a further junction 
up through the Sauerland to the big industrial district north 
of Cologne, but the roads and the bridge-head of Mayence 
include Frankfort and cut off movement by this lateral 
communication, just as the vacated belt east of the Rhine 
paralyses for military purposes of the enemy any use of the 
railway along that right bank. 
mWith Frankfort in allied occupation from Mayence and with 
the southern part of the industrial district under occupation 
from Cologne there is no lateral communication worth having. 
You have to get right back to the main Hne through Cassel, 
100 miles east of the Rhine in its northern part And. 6o miles 
east of it in its southern part, before you get true lateral 
communications again. When you read that the remnants 
of the German armies have had their headquarters fixed at 
Cassel you may know that the reason is that Cassel is the 
nearest point to the east from which there is uninterrupted 
radiating railway communication. But lateral communica- 
tion so far back from the line of the river means that nothing 
could be done even if the German armies were in a different 
state from what they are, in the way of resistance, let alone 
of aggression. 
It is in stud3dng the details of these terms that we under- 
stand their wisdom, and that we see what a misjudgment 
it is to regard the terms of armistice as insufficient because 
they are not theatrical and because they do not satisfy • 
the craving for sensation. 
OBJECTS OF THE ARMISTICE 
The object of an armistice granted by a victorious army 
to a vanquished army is to render the vanquished impotent 
during the period of determining peace terms. Its object 
is not to impose peace but to make the imposition possible, 
or rather certain; and that object the terms of armistice 
and notably the acquisition of the three bridge-heads has 
amply fulfilled. 
How the opportunity will be used only the future can 
show, but that there is a complete power now to impose 
any terms the Allies think necessary or just or wise, that we 
can do precisely what we choose in the arrangements for a 
future peace, that we are no longer constrained by military 
considerations, should be clear to all. That we have 
strategically the whole matter in our hands should be obvious 
to anyone who will study the mere geographical details of 
our position. These three bridge-heads put the enemy as 
much into our power as if we had insisted (and there would 
have been no point in it) upon the personal surrender of 
every individual among the German troops and of every rifle. 
