October 31, 1918 
LAND 6? WATER 
The Definition of Victory : By Hilaire Belloc 
Now that the siege war is reaching the conclu- 
sion which all siege wars reach — that is, an 
unexpectedly rapid collapse — men in the coun- 
tries which have succeeded are discussing 
hastily what they intend by victory. 
I say "hastily" because, in spite of perpetual repetition, 
and in spite of the obvious character of the truths repeated, 
opinion did not grasp till quite the last few days either the 
nature -or the inevitability of the Allies' military success. 
Therefore it was that a false feeling of " stale-mate " coloured 
all that was said. Therefore it was that men envisaged seme 
compromise with an enemy who (they thought) would be still 
strong at the close of the military operations. Therefore it 
is that to-day, when the military truth is apparent— I mean 
the truth that all the material strength of a people consists 
in its army, and nothing but the army, and that when the 
army is dissolved all the rest of the national forces lie at 
your mercy — men have hurriedly to revise their former 
erroneous attitude ; they discover unexpectedly and with 
something of a shock what it is to have succeeded, and begin 
to revise their judgments. 
From the very outset of hostilities the main characteristic 
of this enormous problem on its purely military side has 
been the calculation of numbers in men and in material. 
We have in this paper perpetually presented — especially 
throughout those long and difficult months when, through 
their tedium of war, men had come to doubt even the Simplest 
and most fundamental military truths^the main conditions 
underlying all calculation. , 
THE ENEMY'S INITIAL ADVANTAGES 
So far as the original belligerents were concerned, the 
Central Empires under the Government of Prussia and in 
her train were overwhelmingly superior in men and still 
more superior in material at the outbreak of war. It was 
for that very reason, and in consciousness of such superiority 
that Prussia deliberately designed and forced on this war, 
refusing all arbitration and choosing her own moment and 
her own iniquitous direction through Belgium. 
As we all know, that immense superiority was parried, 
though no more than parried, in the first battle of the Marne ; 
the enemy was held in the West, where his principal opponents 
were thus given time to prepare. 
The tide in numbers turned in the course of the summer 
of 1915 through the great effort England made to develop 
a vast new army and through the accession of Italy. In 
material the progress was necessarily slower. Early igi6 
began to see something of equality in material, though this 
was heavily handicapped by maritime communications and 
by the fact that all available coal for the Allies lay in one 
island area. 
But this gradual recovery in material upon the Allied 
side suffered from a geographical accident which nothing 
could repair. The Russian Empire — one full half of the 
Allied strength in men — was not industrialised ; was in the 
main dependent upon the West for its supply of armament, 
and was so cut off from the West that only with the utmost 
difficulty, through two ports, thousands of miles from the 
front and blocked in winter, could material reach the Russian 
front. Consequently the Russian armies failed from lack of 
material. Their numerical value in men was more than 
counteracted by their penury in aircraft, in transport, in 
heavy artillery, in munitionment, and even in rifles. As a 
result, the Central Empires on the Eastern front took vast 
quantities of prisoners, inflicted losses out of proportion to 
their own, and reduced Russia to the verge of dissolution. 
That peril might, under other political guidance, have been 
averted ; as it was, it brought about the dissolution of the 
State. From the early summer of 1917 Russia was no 
more. 
Thenceforward the race in numbers had to start afresh. 
The Central Empires were once more in preponderance, the 
advent of the United States, with its huge potential resources, 
could not be felt for very many months, and there was time 
for Prussia and her dependents to renew^the stroke of 1914, 
since Prussia and her dependents were once more in a great 
superiority of men and of material. 
That superiority was used in the following fashion : great 
numbers of men were spared from the fighting fronts, were 
given a special training, and produced a new tactical method. 
That method was launched first at Caporetto in the autumn 
of 1917, and then against the French and British armies 
during the tremendous attacks of this spring. Once more, 
as in 1914, the peril was parried ; but this time the counter- 
blow came much more swiftly : this time the wearing down 
of the enemy numbers and" the acquirement of superiority 
by ourselves was a rapid process ; and this for three 
reasons : 
1. Firstly, the enemy had exhausted himself by his 
tremendous losses against the French and English during 
his great drives. These losses were always duly accounted 
for by those who had the habit of calculation in military 
affairs. Unfortunately, public opinion, disappointed and 
fatigued by so many years of apparently unsuccessful war, 
doubted those calculations, and continued to believe the 
enemy stronger than he was. 
2. Secondly, the enemy by^his very advances had come 
to present dangerous flanks, notably at Soissons and at 
Amiens, where counter-blows would affect him profoundly. 
3. Thirdly, the Americans arriving in their great numbers 
relieved the strain progressively. It is true that the effect 
was only indirect at first ; it was none the less fundamental. 
It enabled so-called "quiet sectors" to b/e taken over by 
the Americans. It permitted the presence of increasingly 
numerous American divisions and lesser units in among 
the French and British forces, and it compelled the enemy 
to mass (and lose in proportion) on vital points where, against 
a lesser effort (supposing the Americans had not been present) 
he would not have had to use such great numbers of men. 
THE TURN OF THE TIDE 
As a result of all this, the enemy numbers began to dimin- 
ish with startling rapidity. Counting in divisions, tkeir 
force still seemed very great. They had at the beginning 
of the counter-offensive — that is, in the middle of last July — 
205 divisions in the Western field ; but we have since found 
that these divisions were already far below their full estab- 
lishment. Even so, divisions had to be broken up at the 
rate of two every week — 25 in three months — to-day more 
than 30 have gone ; and even of these remaining the strength 
is lessening. In this last fight it has appeared that 
some of the most reliable and important enemy divisions 
are no more than skeletons. 
In prisoners alone a third of a million were lest between 
July and October ; that is a leakage in men by capture 
alone at the rate of more than ico,cgo a month. In guns 
a fourth of the total enemy material was actually captured 
in the same period, and scmethjng like a third of what they 
had on the Western front was put out of use by capture and 
wear combined. Meanwhile, the rate of munitionment also 
declined ; how rapidly we do not know, but vast quantities 
of -material were captured during the Allied advance, and 
it appears that the supply of shell from the factories within 
the Central Empires is now also decreasing. 
Now, in such a situation the armies of the enemy cannot 
hold. The exact- length of time which it may take before 
their dissolution forbids them to maintain an unbroken 
line no one can tell. But the result is certain ; and 
not only is certain, but is certainly near. When armies 
reach that state a hundred novel factors ccme in, 
political and military, to hasten the end. There is some 
considerable measure of political dissolution already at work 
within the enemy countries, and throughout the enemy 
armies the paral^'^irg conviction that defeat is not only 
inevitable but proximate. 
In such a situation it is necessarily the object of the enemy 
to save all fie can from the ruin. His hope of arriving at a • 
maximum of salvage is based upon discussion, Hegotiation, 
the atmosphere of peace talk, and the remains of that false 
idea long current among civilians that somehow or other 
his armies would always continue to be strong. 
Upon our side the right policy is equally obvious. It is 
for the Allies to concentrate upon complete victory ; because 
complete victory is now manifestly theirs for the waiting. 
MILITARY AND POLITICAL OBJECTS 
But there is some danger lest the definition of complete 
victory be missed, and we shall do well to analyse into its 
great main elements the situation which confronts us. Only 
by so doing, and by getting our minds quite clear upon 
our aims, shall we either achieve an immediate strong peace 
or make it enduring. 
The first great principle to retain in all such affairs is the 
