November 21, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
against Spain in the sixteenth century. But in spite 
of this, in spite of the fact that we must recognise re- 
ligious differences and mark the places where it connotes 
a real difference of national tradition, it should be sub- 
mitted, if we are to make the final settlement stable, to 
the settlement of nationality. 
Let us grant then (as I think is already granted, in the 
minds of nearly all of those who approach this problem 
seriously) that the strong modern motive of national patriotism 
must be satisfied first : that no firm or permanent arrange- 
ment could be made which does not accept it, work with 
it, and try to confirm it for good. 
Let us suppose Europe (it is too good a dream to come 
true) fixed in a stable arrangement of States much the greater 
part of which would be strong through a common patriotism, 
and able with that strength to manage each its own domestic 
problem, especially the most perilous problem of all, its 
economic problem. Let us even imagine internatienal forces 
to have become straightforward, to be workirg above board, 
and to be acting only as servants of the common good, and 
as subsidiary to these local national enthusiasms. Does 
there not still remain a danger for the future peace of Europe, 
and in particular a peril to that civilisation of the south 
and west, which the former German Empire and its Allies 
insolently challenged and so very nearly destroyed ? 
There does. It is still in acute danger, and it will become 
a greater danger than ever if we imagine that we have settled 
things once and for all by the erection of nominally inde- 
pendent States. That danger is the coalescence under 
another form of all those forces which when they were moulded 
and organised by Prussia proved so awful a menace to the 
older civilised life of Europe. 
That is the target of policy. Let us aim at striking it. 
{To be continued) 
The Bully on His Back : By Arthur Pollen 
THE fact of the German surrender and the terms 
on which the surrender was accepted, were made 
known after my last week's article had been 
written. It was already clear that the German 
navy would submit to any humiliation rather 
than fight. But few people can have been prepared for such 
an utter sea eclipse as must now befall. All the sujjmarines 
and battle-cruisers, and a full half of the fighting fleet are 
to be surrendered before Monday next. All the ships not 
surrendered are to be paid off, disarmed and demobilised, 
and then left under Allied supervisiori. The terms apply 
to the ships in German control in the Black Sea equally with 
those in the Baltic, and the acceptance of the terms carries 
with it the evacuation and surrender of all the defences 
which close the Baltic to the Allied fleets and shipping. 
The German navy — actually demoralised and therefore mili- 
tarily non-existent before the armistice was asked for — will 
therefore in a few days be materially non-existent as 
well. 
The astonishing character of this transaction lies in its 
singular contrast to the case of the German army on land. 
When one reads through the armistice conditions, one's first 
impression is that the principle of disarming the enemy has 
been carried out impartially in both elements. The army 
has surrendered so many guns, so many machine-guns, so 
much rolling stock, evacuates so much territory, gives up 
so many positions. The navy surrenders so many ships, 
disarms the rest and so forth. It is only when one remembers 
that the German army has fought to the point of absolute 
exhaustion before surrendering that the extraordinary 
nature of the naval catastrophe becomes clear. For it 
cannot be insisted upon too strongly that the collapse of Ger- 
man sea-power came when materially it was at its highest, 
Kever before had the enemy possessed more or better ships, 
never had he for a year enjoyed such opportunities for train- 
ing his fleet for those complex combined manoeuvres which 
the great diversity of his force and the mechanical perfection 
•f its material made possible. Here he had advantages 
denied to us. After the failure of the Russian navy to defend 
the Gulf of Riga, it became perfectly clear that, save for the 
British submarines, the Baltic had become a German lake. 
The treaty of Brest-Litovsk compelled even the British 
submarines to leave, and from February last the German 
fleet has had no opponent, surface or under-water, in all 
the waters that stretch away from Kiel. The Grand Fleet 
has never lacked for sea-practice, but its practices have been 
carried on in spite of such threats and dangers as German 
submarines and German mines held over it. The German 
fleet could have manoeuvred month after month at its will, 
without a single anxiety or taking a single precaution. But 
the German command lacked the strategical insight, the 
tactical insight, the gallantry of initiative, necessary for put- 
ting this advantage to account. Worse stilJ, it could not 
inspire its personnel with the fighting spirit. A fleet, then, 
materially intact and with every opportunity' for attaining 
a great mastery of tactics and for developing a perfect moral, 
has now been surrendered — without striking a blow for its 
country, without the slightest pride in its power, without 
possessing any self-respect to lose. 
The thing is, of course, entirely without precedent in 
history, but then Germany holds some curious naval records 
already. A Prussian Government once sold the whole of 
its fleet by public auction. In this war, with a few, but very 
few, honourable exceptions, the German fleet's action at sea 
has been unique. It has warred, not against sfe- armed' 
opponent openly in battle — but by the stealthy assassination 
of the defenceless. It goes then unhonoured into the nothing- 
ness from which it came. 
The whole episode is extraordinarily characteristic. Its 
most striking feature is one it shares with the Russian 
revolution. When the Tsardom fell, the discovery which 
disconcerted the Allies most of all was that the Russian 
people seemed wholly without national pride. In the fall 
of what we used to call Germany, it is this that marks the 
action of its fleet. That force has taken two inglorious 
leads. Its refusal to fight, whether from ccmlnon sense or 
from cowardice, proved that it was not a sea microcosm 
of a nation willing to lose everything but honour when the 
time of trial came. It was the first line of the heme defence 
to break. It was the failure of the unexhausted, untried, 
imfought navy that compelled the surrender of the war- 
worn, distracted, exhausted army. And, not content tvith. 
this, it was the navy that gave the signal for the German' 
revolution. 
It is exactly in these two appearances, the last historic- 
appearances of the German navy, that we see the difference- 
between the two protagonist nations of the war. When the 
British people found themselves, quite unexpectedly and most 
reluctantly, at war in 1914, their confidence, not only in the 
material strength, but in the loyalty, devotion, and the fighi- 
ing spirit of their fleet was absolute. Nor has that confidence- 
wavered once, from the day when the Grand Fleet went to 
its stations a week before war was declared, until yesterday, 
when the new fast cruiser Koenigsberg was met fifty miles 
from Rosyth, bringing on board those who had c«me to 
receive Sir David Beatty's orders for the disposal of the 
German fleet. And just as the British nation has never 
doubted the British navy, so, too, the navy has never wavered 
for an instant in its belief in the constancy of the British 
nation to its historic mission. In the merchant service — 
as the Board of Admiralty has finely reminded us by 
a most opportune message of praise and thanks to that 
incomparable body — the Royal Kavy has found allies and 
colleagues and indeed brothers in arms, of a temper and 
spirit not inferior to its own. The navy is the fighting Briton 
afloat, the merchant service the civilian Briton at sea. The 
finest traits of national character have been exemphfied 
by each. There was a time just before the war when the ' 
public was rushed into a discussion as to what would happen 
should merchant ships become liable to unexpected torpedo 
attack from submarines. An admiral of great reputation 
and wide experience prophesied confidently that, as trade 
was timid, the first threat of submarine attack would drive 
all merchantmen from the sea. It was a prophecy most 
singularly and, let us not be ashamed to add, most surpris- 
ingly falsified. If anyone will take the trouble to set out 
graphwise the sailings and clearances from British ports, 
and try to gather from them the periods of greatest danger 
of submarine attack, he will find himself amazingly misled 
by the inferences that seem obvious. The destruction of 
nine million tons cf British shipping necessarily made a 
difference to the arrivals and departures of ships from Britisb 
ports. But the murder of between twelve and fifteen thousand 
officers, seamen, and passenger non-combatants seemingly 
made no difference to the willingness to face the risks insepar- 
able from the submarine. Nor has there been a single actioB 
by the Royal or the merchant navy at sea dishonourable to 
themselves or to the nation, or questionable on any code of 
