LAND 6? WATER 
November 14, 1918 
what am I to au -.vhen such an authority disappears ? To 
whom shall I apply, and how shall I know the new authority 
to which I apply can in its turn command obedience ? And 
if it does not command obedience, how shall I exercise 
authority over the millioned masses with which I have to 
deal ? " 
Let us take a few concrete questions which will help i to 
clear our minds. Out of many thousand abominable murders, 
committed with the full approval of the authoristd German 
peoples and, remember, not by order of their Government, 
but upon the spontaneous iniquity of individuals, whose 
names we happily hold, let us take one — the murder of 
Captain Fryatt. 
Captain Fryatt was an Englishman commanding a vessel 
which by every precedent of the sea, and by ever}- dictate of 
the human conscience, was immune from lawful attack. It 
was a merchant vessel, which an enemy might smiimon and 
might, if the summons were disregarded, combat, but which, 
if the summons were admitted and the vessel surrendered, 
had in common humanity to be taken to port, or if port 
could not be reached, to be left alone. 
A submarine appeared, and simply proposed to murder 
the people on board. Captain Fryatt, to defend himself 
against tliis threatened murder, tried to destroy the sub- 
marine ; he failed, and as a consequence of his failure, there 
was a surrender of incUviduals who could fight no more. 
So far, so good. 
The enemy then, upon no conceivable pretext of right, 
but merely as an act of terror, in order to prevent any other 
captain from defending his ship against attack (he misunder- 
stood the English temperament), murdered the man who 
had defended his ship. Such a thing was apparently 
unknown among Europeans before the date upon which the 
crime was committed. It is perfectly novel. It is merely 
anarchy pushed to a degree which threatens the whole of 
our civilisation if the precedent be admitted. 
And so the tale continues. To deal with an enemy that 
has become fluid is apparently a hopeless task. 
It is too late to argue now whether that situation can be 
saved or not. Lord Milner very wisely and properly pointed 
out that dealing with an organised government was a far 
easier and better and greater thing than dealing with a chaos, 
for which common-sense remark he has been most unreasonably 
attacked. It was common sense to speak like that, and 
it is a little difficult for one: who is accustomed to hard thinking 
to understand the attitude of the imbecile who does not see 
so obvious a proposition. But I say it is too late to discuss 
this particular point of policy. The break-up has taken 
place. It is spreading, and will continue. And what oppor- 
tunities does it offer ? 
:A'DIS0RGANISED GERMANY 
It offers, I conceive, exactly the same opportunities as 
are presented to the Germans by the corresponding deli- 
quescence of what was formerly the Russian Empire. When 
disease of anarchy from the flabbier minds of the East, his 
judgment is bad. There is nothing else to be said. It is 
a matter susceptible of positive proof. It is a question of 
knowing men. The ancient societies of the West are not 
of this temper. I know that there are men living out of 
touch with the masses — usually very rich men — who talk 
vaguely of r(*volution in England. They talk nonsense. 
The exceedingly unpopular Parliamentarians in France talk 
in the same way to a handful of men who go from England 
to Paris and meet no other sort of Frenchman. That is because 
were there any revolution in France, it would only take the 
form of clearing out the Parliamentary oligarchy which the 
Frenchmen detest, and which has imposed itself upon the 
country by various forms of anarchy, and which war has 
blown skyhigh. But of revolution in the sense of anarchy, 
a revolution in the sense of the dissociation of society, and 
the destruction of credit, France and England are as incap- 
able as is a sober man of a drunken indignity. Let us 
remember that the French have suffered in this war things 
that the Germans have not even begim to suffer, and have 
stood firm. The Italians have suffered things which would 
seem incredible to the Germans, and have stood firm. And 
the British in face not only of terrible losses nor of 
sudden military catastrophes," but also — perhaps a worse 
trial — of unexpected and novel strains of which their history 
gave them no example, have stood firm. The moment the 
same strains came upon the ignorant German Empire it 
dissolved. You are dealing with different temperaments in the 
case of the South and West from what you are dealing with 
in the case of the mixed peoples of the centre of Europe. A 
man that thinks otherwise does not know Europe, any more 
than a foreign tourist knows the English farmer or the Eng- 
lish squire, and there is to be added this still more cogent 
argument. It is not the victor who produces anarchy. 
It is the vanquished. Even the French discipline showed 
a patch of great danger in the Commune. Why ? Because 
French workpeople had been defeated. Take Russia. It 
has dissolved. But why ? Because it had been defeated. 
Now is the new-fangled Prussian State dissolving. But 
why ? Because it has been defeated. Those who are going 
forward and regaining their own are not in a mood for folly 
but for glory. As for the second objection that we canno't 
obtain definite results and must therefore forego justice, I 
will conclude with a definite example: the repatriation of 
prisoners. ^ We shall demand that our prisoners be returned 
whole while we retain those taken from the enemy. Let 
us suppose a rjefusal of that demand. What happens ? 
Against a defeated enemy we can enter a country and release 
our sons and our brothers and execute what proper ven- 
geance we please against anv that interfere with this act 
of justice. 
The whole thing resolves itself into this : by the energies 
of the British Empire, the French, and the Italians, to whom 
has been lately added the vast resources of the United States, 
a siege war conducted against the whole of Central Europe 
and its adjuncts organised under Prussia has been decided. 
discipline^goes, everything goes, and your^ enemy is at your It was for long a fairly balanced struggle accompanied by 
•D,.* ...uu 4.u: i. Aia XT--X _ j-^__ . , ^jjg Jqj^^ tedium and fooHsh mismanagement of all siege 
wars. Like all sieges the end has come suddenly, and when 
it has come has come catastrophically, and the enemy is 
held. There is no alternative but complete submission by 
voluntary act or by the mere imposition of his victors, and 
I allow the second issue to be the best. 
The French phrase, invented at Verdun two years ago, 
sprang up spontaneously among the soldiers— "On' les aura," 
has proved Delphic, they were to be grasped at last, and 
grasped they are. Let them surrender or be destroyed 
It is iridii^erent. 
In the tremendous newts of these last days there is a slight 
historical thing which has been half-forgotten. It is the 
way in which the last march of the Allies has passed over point 
mercy. But with this vast difference : that a disorganised 
set of German States is an easier thing to master by far than 
a disorganised mass of Russian peasantry and of inchoate 
Russian townsmen run by cliques of internationals. 
To be brief, if authority beyond the Rhine breaks down, 
the countries beyond the Rhine will be invaded, and they 
are sufficiently compact to be invaded with thorough effi- 
ciency. They can be held in a disarmed and chaotic state 
with a comparatively small military effort, not with a small 
force of men, indeed, at the moment, but with a small military 
effort, and the ransom can be arranged. Mines and fac- 
tories can be taken over, lands can be confiscated, harbours 
can be seized. This is supposing, of course, that we really 
desire to achieve victory. Those who prefer to spare the 
enemy through some affection for him must be left upon one after point already fixed in the military memory of Europe 
c,-^„ Ti.»„ o.„ o =...11 .i,.„„i, „:„,„„. „;„„,:... _„^ „._.. j^e Country between Cambrai and St. Quentin was fought 
over the very ground on which the Carolinga family, with its 
decisive victory achieved power. The plain of Chalon, what 
IS called Chaupine Pouolleusc, the British only this last week 
advancing to Mons passing directly over the field of Mal- 
plaquet and just over Maubeuge, saw upon the north the 
right bank of Sambre, a square lift of earth which was the 
camp of Caesar on the day when he broke the Nervii, "when 
it was seen what the discipline of the Roman people could do." 
With the more recent history we are more familiar, and 
every one has noted the coincidence of Sedan. But it is a 
coincidence within a coincidence that the last victorious 
attack, by which the Americans carried the bridge, was 
conducted over that very peninsula— wide river meadow- 
side. They are a small, though violent, minority, and may 
be neglected. 
But these conclusions would be insufficient unless one 
were to answer very briefly two objections which are at once 
put forward by those who still desire to save what still can 
he saved of the enemy's position. The first objection is the 
statement that the social rot begun in the Germanics may 
spread to the strong, solid ancient nations of the west, and 
that therefore we must hold our hand and ignominiously 
abandon our rights in some sort of vague terror of anarchy. 
The second is, that do what you will you cannot obtain 
your results. 
"Now as to the first of these it is'a mere question"* of 
judgment. If anybody thinks that the French peasant or 
the English workman has in him anything in the nature of upon which the defeated' army was cooped up and the pris 
anarchy, that would produce anarchy, would catch the oners counted on that fatal day, fortj^-eight years ago. 
