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will presumably be unable to move for some time and may have to be counted out of the war, a contingency it were madness to minimize. Happily her place will ultimately be taken by the United States, at whose preparations Berlin laughs to-day as it laughed at ours yesterday. But just as the British Armies are no longer a subject of merriment to German journalists, who have received orders to slobber over us, so the American Army should with time become a formidable factor and secure equal respect from a community which only admires might, and can only be civil to those who can give it a hiding. Conceivably America may develop sooner than experts anticipate, though in the face of our experience of the organization required to insure success in modern warfare, it would be both rash and wrong to underrate the task now confronting the Americans, but they have some qualities not common elsewhere that should stand them in good stead when they have bought some experience.

United
States

THE greater the part played by the United States on land, on sea, and in the air, the better for all the Allies, because the sooner will their agonies be over. There is room for all in the Great War. We cannot afford the luxury of petty jealousies in fighting anything so hideous as the Boche. No European grudges the Great Republic any part she may elect to play or any power she may thereby acquire. We feel nothing but contempt for those, if there be such, who dread the development of the United States as a military Power and would almost prefer to patch up a premature Peace before she gets fairly going. The world will only become a tolerable place for any civilized nation when the common enemy of mankind has been reduced to submission. An unbeaten Germany or a half-beaten Germany would resume the Frightful Adventure at the first favourable moment, and next time, with the experience of these three years, from which she would extract the utmost profit while other Powers had resumed their pacific existence, she would make a certainty of success, and the full Pan-German programme would become an accomplished fact. It would not only be the end of the independence of every European Power, but ultimately of every American Power. Our only hope of preserving our liberties and independence is for the entire civilized

world to put its back into the war and crush Prussian militarism in fact as well as by words. To this the United States can contribute enormously; our only fear is lest Washington may be tempted to follow the bad lead of London and treat the war as an affair of water-tight compartments, which means that the Americans, like ourselves, would take years to make a serious start. One would not care to contemplate the effect of such delay on Allies now bearing the brunt, who have mobilized or are in the process of mobilizing their entire manhood. It seems incredible that there should still be any serious person who depreciates the enemy as a military organism. Rather are we afraid of those who may overrate him because they are more conscious of our difficulties than of his. Not a few of ours are home-made. The Central Empires enjoy the incalculable advantage of interior lines, which substantially diminishes the strain upon their armies. Tired and broken divisions battered by Sir Douglas Haig or General Pétain are taken for a rest cure to Germany's Eastern Front, whence new and fresh divisions are moved to the West. At one time our quidnuncs were disposed to make merry over the perpetual motion of the Imperial army, which was supposed to be wearing itself out in racketing journeys, but to-day that gibe is no longer heard, and we only wish we could give our heroic troops so complete a change. So much so that it has been suggested that we transfer two or three Divisions from France to Ireland, where they might make themselves useful during the enforcement of Compulsory Service, which would add approximately to the British Armies 250,000 first-class fighting men, who nowadays can find nothing better to do than to kick their heels about in Sinn Fein agitation.

Interior v.
Exterior Lines

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WHILE the enemy commands interior lines, our temptation has been exterior lines, which, as explained in an article elsewhere, are responsible for a deplorable dissipation of British forces under the impulse of amateur strategy, which in its love of short cuts has undeniably prolonged the war. Armies have been diverted to indecisive fields, which if concentrated at the decisive point might have secured a decision. It was not merely that the politicians had so arranged that we drifted into this struggle for existence without an army in the modern sense of that term, but our Churchills were

permitted to squander our exiguous forces in "little packets," which could achieve little beyond casualties we could ill afford. We have never recovered from these Side Shows. We remain immersed in them. Each is on so large a scale that it would be called "a war" in ordinary times. It is no reflection on the generalship of an Allenby, a Maude, or a Milne, nor on the devotion and skill of their officers and men, to express regret at their absence from Flanders at this juncture. They are keeping their ends up with skill and success often amid discouraging circumstances in trying and wasting climates. Our criticism is of the policy that placed them where they are, which we owe, not to soldiers, but to orators who never thought of war before launching the ultimatum of August 4, 1914, shirking its every problem in the past on the facile plea that it was "unthinkable" in this enlightened age, all the more as peace was "the greatest of British interests." ." Tactical blunders are retrievable but not strategical blunders, and apart from our escape from Gallipoli, which we owe to a soldier of rare moral courage as well as sound military judgment (Sir Charles Monro) who jeopardized his career in tendering unwelcome advice, circumstances have proved too strong in every other case-i.e. Salonika, Palestine, and Mesopotamia-to permit withdrawal, and we find ourselves committed to retain and maintain these considerable armies, though it makes one's mouth water to watch this steady drain of men, of munitions, of guns and aeroplanes, which would make all the difference in the West, where Divisions bearing the heat and burden of the day are sorely short of infantry, and every gun and every aeroplane are wanted. If by a magician's wand any one of these three distant expeditions could be put in at the right moment against the Prussians or the Bavarians, the course of the war might be altered. Then, again, one cannot resist asking whether the "Home Defence Army," kicking its heels about in these islands on the pretext that we are liable to invasion, is contributing its utmost to the winning of the war. When he commanded in France, Lord French was reputed to regard the invasion of England as a negligible peril, though it was much less negligible then than now. As Commander-in-Chief of the Home Army he has golden opportunities of giving effect to his sound strategic views by setting his face against the bathing-machine school.

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NOR can we ignore the heavy strain on our depleted shipping of our Litttle Packets, as everything has to come by sea to overseas expeditions-a consideration absent from the minds of Where the War their authors, to whom the words "transport," supplies,' "drafts" convey nothing. Let us look to it that the amateur strategist has issued his last order and is denied all further say in the war. in the war. The shipping absorbed on Side Shows would go far to ease the Shipping Controller's anxieties. That the Admiralty should press their wholly sound view on this question is entirely intelligible. It coincides with the better military view. Indeed Army and Navy would have little difficulty in settling any differences unless deliberate mischief were made between them by interested third parties. Admirals can see as well as Generals, Generals no less than Admirals, that we can never win the war by defeating or even by annihilating Turks, Bulgars, or Austrians, but only by destroying Prussian military power, which cannot be overthrown where we cannot get at it, but only where we can. On the Anglo-French front the fate of Europe will be decided. The Somme, the Ancre, the Yser, Arras, Messines, Vimy, Ypres, Champagne, Verdun, and many others are words of terrible import to the enemy, just as our Side Shows are his salvation. We merely play his game when we pit the precious lives of Englishmen against those of Turks or Bulgars, whom the German General Staff joyfully stakes against us. Germany might lose every Side Show and still win the war were she victorious in the West, just as we might win every Side Show and lose the war if she kept the coast over against us. What, again, would it avail France to enter Sofia if in order to get there she enabled the Boche to capture Paris? After all, strategy is only applied common sense, but, unfortunately, common sense is exceedingly rare. It is almost unknown in Downing Street, where men are too clever by half and wholly unconscious of the obvious. Those who denied that there was a military problem before the war now treat our Army as inexhaustible and are prepared to dispatch British guns to any country that may ask for them. It is not only the Army that is harassed, but if we may believe a tithe of what we hear, the Navy is being "ballyragged by Mr. Churchill, who, despite "Antwerp," "the Dardanelles," "Kut," has turned up like a bad penny, and on the strength of

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being Munitions Minister would take command of the Grand Fleet. It may be hoped that the new First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes, who gained the confidence of the soldiers, may be equally successful with the sailors, which will largely depend on the fidelity with which he follows his predecessor in protecting the Navy from civilian interference on matters beyond civilian competence. It will be remembered that Sir Edward Carson proclaimed this sound principle:

A "Warming-
Pan"?

So long as I am at the Admiralty the sailors will have full scope. They will not be interfered with by me, and I will allow no one else to interfere with them. (Sir Edward Carson, First Lord of the Admiralty, at the Aldwych Club, March 8, 1917.) EVERY Englishman sincerely hopes that an interesting experiment may be abundantly justified, but Sir Eric Geddes would find his relations both with the Admiralty and the Fleet seriously compromised were credence given to the rumour that he has been put in as an unconscious "warming-pan" for Mr. Winston Churchill, and that, like many other Ministers whose jobs are freely offered to others behind their backs, he might suddenly hear that his had been allotted to the modern Dugald Dalgetty. We mention this rumour in the hope of putting a spoke in the wheel of the plutocratic gang of cosmopolitan outlook, if not of cosmopolitan blood, who appear to be backing Mr. Churchill in the Press and elsewhere for all they are worth and for far more than he is worth. Having got him into the Munitions Ministry they mean to place him at the Admiralty as a stepping-stone to the Premiership. This may sound far-fetched and ridiculous to many of our readers, but it is not more extravagant than some current events, such as the offer of the Foreign Office to Mr. Asquith, or the attempt to persuade Viscount Grey to return to diplomacy, or the recrudescence of Lord Haldane, who was popularly supposed to be permanently "down and out." Our astounding Prime Minister, who is rarely in the same mood two hours together, is thought to be capable of doing almost anything under given circumstances. The only hope of saving him from himself is for the man in the street to remain permanently on the watch, to believe no denial of any rumours concerning Mr. Churchill in the Churchill Press and very little of what they hear. We are threatened with defeat in the interests

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