LAND 6? WATER 
November 28, 1918 
Siberia beyond the Ural Mountains to Pctrograd. But all 
over the country there are true men and brave who believe 
in the national destiny, and are willing to give their work 
and their lives for it. What they lack is any visible cer- 
tainty of the help and support, without which any overt act 
of theirs would be wasted. 
The regeneration of Russia will not be brought about 
— if at all — by a set war in which the East invades the West, 
but by a movement, sporadic at first, but finally universal, 
in which all the forces that make for settled order will assert 
themselves. What is wanted to-day is to give heart of grace 
to these forces from as many' centres as possible. Alread\' on 
the Murmansk coast there is an Allied force, and its influence 
extends far beyond the barren and frozen territory that it 
occupies. The bases from which such influence can radiate 
should be multiplied to the utmost. It is ridiculous to 
suppose that even in Petrograd there are not elements which 
will be powerful enough to strike effectively against the 
anarchists, if only they know that there is some reality of 
force behind the words of sympathy so generously offered 
to them by Allied statesmen. Now, who can estimate the 
result in Russia of the influence of sea-power if British ships 
appear before Reval and Riga, if Kronstadt could be brought 
under the guns of our Fleet, simultaneously with Allied sea 
forces appearing off Odessa and Sevastopol ? Is it not, 
indeed, almost certain that here, at least, history would 
repeat itself ? When, a century ago, Napoleon invaded 
Russia and got to Moscow, the thing that gave incalculable 
support to the Russian Government was the presence of 
British ships in the Baltic Sea and the immense effect they 
had in interfering with Napoleon's communications and in 
heartening the people to a realisation of their national duty. 
And if our help to Russia is to go beyond the defeat of 
Bolshevism, if we are to give that remarkable nation the 
chance of regaining its unity, may not the presence of Allied 
fleets in the Black Sea, as well as in the Baltic, be exactly 
that determining factor by which this issue would be decided ? 
If this is a situation in which a vast political result, inde- 
finitely beneficial to the world, might be attained by sea-power, 
is it not one in which immediate action is enormously urgent ? 
And if one goes further and proceeds to the consideration 
of the other Baltic problems, viz., the cases of Finland and 
Poland, is not the case equally strong for promptitude ? 
It is possible that, even without the presence of the fleet, 
Finland may break altogether clear of German influence ; 
but the revolutionary element will hardly be altogether 
suppressed until it is suppressed in Russia, and if the fleet 
can help in one it helps automatically in the other. The 
need of Poland, not only for moral, but for the material 
support of the Allies, is surely very obvious. It is one of 
the main purposes of the peace to give back to the Poles the 
whole of their ancient territories with full access to the sea. 
The armistice provisions which bring the Germaa naval bases 
under the occupation of the Allies may or may not justify 
us directly in seizing Danzig and Koenigsberg. But there 
is no question that the peace conditions are to secure the 
free use, if not tjie fee simple, of a seaport to Poland, and 
it would be all to the good that one of the first of Admiral 
Browning's actions after the occupation of Kiel should be 
an overt demonstration in Poland's favour. A British fleet at 
Danzig would, at this juncture, do something more than give 
moral support to a people who have already thrown off the Ger- 
man and Austrian yoke. It would be in a position to guarantee 
military and naval aid, should disloyal attempts be made, by 
Russian revolutionists or by the German Reds, to interfere with 
the orderly progress of reconstruction . Here then we have two 
tasks set before our Fleet, and in each case they should be 
undertaken without the least delay. 
Sea Power and Peace 
The regeneration of Russia and the restoration of Pgland 
are great causes worthy of every effort for their own sake. 
But they are particularly worthy of effort because, as sea- 
power is the only means by which the Western Powers can 
help, and as it is sea-power that has brought about the 
destruction of German militarism, it is a crucial matter that, 
before the Peace Conference meets, the fleet's predominant 
share, both in defeating Germany and in ensuring the full 
fruits of victory, should be made unmistakably obvious to 
all the world. Without this final and convincing proof our 
representatives will be robbed of their best credentials. 
Already there is wide discontent and uneasiness amongst 
many thoughtful people that in the armistice terms, however 
satisfactory the German sea surrender, there was no such 
recognition of Great Britain's sea services as might easily 
and, indeed, should almost obviously have been included. 
Let me state again a point perhaps already familiar to my 
readers. When Germany applied for an armistice it was 
asked for on the condition that the terms of peace would be 
those set before the American public by President Wilson. 
The Allies consented to this preliminary condition with two 
modifications. The question of belligerent and neutral 
rights at sea was left for open and unprejudiced discussion, 
and it was stipulated that it should be a condition of peace 
that Germany was to be liable for all the consequential 
damages to civilian property that her unprovoked aggression 
had inflicted. This last was a moderate demand, and amounted 
to no more than this : that what Germany had stolen or 
otherwise caused us to lose, was to be repaid. It was not 
in its nature a condition differing at all from another included 
in the fourteen points, namely, the evacuation>of the invaded 
territories and the restoration to France of the provinces 
wrongfully seized at the Treaty of Versailles. Restitution 
was the justification of both. Now, Alsace-Lorraine has 
been given up by Germany. It has been re-occupied by the 
French Army, after an interval measured only by the time 
it took for the German forces to get out and the French 
forces to get in. Before these lines are in print every yard 
of this French territory will be in French hands, together 
with all German private property that could not be removed. 
The debt was obvious and admitted, the method of repay- 
ment simple and direct. There was no reason for delay. 
But, on the same showing, why should Germany's debt 
to the world's sea service not have been acknowledged and 
met by a similar restoration ? Nine million tons of British 
shipping and half as much again of Allied and neutral has 
been wantonly destroyed by piratical action. Germany has 
over three — possibly four — million tons of merchant shipping 
lying idle in her harbours. There is no question about the 
debt. The means — or, at any rate, the partial means — of 
repayment are there. Why was immediate repayment not 
insisted on ? This failure to insist upon a very obvious 
piece of restoration has undoubtedly given the impression 
that the representatives of this country failed to maintain 
the due of sea-power when the armistice terms were settled. 
I do not suggest that the whole of this tonnage should have 
been surrendered to Great Britain. Its allocation on some 
just principle between all the Powers whose shipping has 
suffered at the enemy's hands would have been simple. The 
point is that this tonnage still remains in German hands, 
though useless to them, for the blockade continues unabated. 
Nor is this the only point in which we seem to have been 
somewhat shy of acting on our professed belief that sea- 
power has won the war. The fourteen points containing 
President Wilson's unexplained statement, about "absolute 
freedom of navigation alike in peace and war," were public 
property in the first week of January last year. A week or 
two later the subject was amplified in the President's address 
to the Senate. An examination of the text of his words 
leaves the meaning of the passage in the fourteen points still 
obscure. But surely it was no service to a good understanding 
amongst the Allies that the British Government should have 
remained silent from that day to this. If the Washington 
correspondents of the New York Press are to be trusted, this 
question of the freedom of the seas is one to which President 
Wilson attaches the utmost importance. Has Great Britain 
got a policy in this matter ? If it has, has that policy been 
discussed with and been accepted by any of her allies ? Are 
we to continue the course of policy which gave us first the 
Declaration of Paris and then the Declaration of London ? 
Or have we learned wisdom by the war ? 
The Peace Conference, we are told, is to meet in January 
and finish its deliberations in six weeks. If the new com- 
munities into which the enemy countries have split, or seem 
likely to split — for Bavaria, we now learn, advocates the 
division of the late German Empire into ten republics — can 
organise themselves under government that look like being 
stable between now and March ist, their achievements will 
be very astonishing. So far, Hindenberg seems to be the 
only strong and, indeed, the only sane person in German 
public life. The people are represented to be receiving the 
German soldiers as if they were conquerors coming from 
victory. Perseus discusses the fall of the German Navy as 
if Tirpitz's crime was not the black murder of piracy, but 
failure to organise it more on a scale sufficient to win. Both 
the people ?nd their leaders seem, therefore, entirely uncon- 
scious of what has happened or of the responsibilities they 
have incurred. Whether the actual surrender of the fleet, 
the actual occupation of the naval bases, will do something 
to enlighten them, we do not know ; but one thing is sure. 
There must be no room for German sea illusions. Our 
spokesmen at the Peace Conference must, if they are to be 
faithful, maintain the sea rights of the Power that has brought 
about the victory, and their best title to do it will be to use 
that sea-power from now till the conference meets to its utmost. 
