rticles.

By surprise either Army can bulge in a sector of the opposing lines but,
until one Army loses its _moral_, neither Army can break through. An
engine will be found to restore marches and manoeuvres but, at this
historic moment, our tactics are at that stage. To break through, Armies
must advance some six or seven miles; otherwise they can't bag the
enemy's big guns. But, the backbone of their attack, their own guns,
can't support them when they get beyond five or six miles. The enemy
reserves come in; they come at last to a stop. A three or four mile
advance _should_ be easy enough, but, in the West, that would mean just
three or four miles of land; nothing more. But _here_, those three or
four miles--nay, two or three miles--(so ineffective in France) are an
objective in themselves; they give us the strategical hub of the
universe--Constantinople!

Suppose even that by paying the cost in lives we did succeed in driving
the Germans over the Rhine, still we stand to gain less than by taking
this one little peninsula! A quarter of the energy they are about to
develop for the sake of getting back a few miles of _la belle France_
could give us Asia; Africa; the Balkans; the Black Sea; the mouths of
the Danube: it would enable us to swap rifles for wheat with the
Russians; more vital still, it would tune up the hearts of the Russian
soldiery to the Anglo-Saxon pitch.

Victory by killing Germans is a barbarous notion and a savage method. A
thrust with small forces at a weak spot to bring the enemy to their
knees by loss of provinces, resources and prestige is an artistic idea
and a scientific stroke: the one stands for a cudgel blow, the other for
rapier play.

We take it for granted that we have to "push" in France and Flanders;
that we _have_ to exhaust ourselves in forcing the invaders back over
their own frontiers. Whereas, content to "hold" there, we might push
wherever else we wished.

I can well understand that a Frenchman should say, "Let the world go
hang provided I get back my _Patrie_, whole; undivided and at once."
Indeed, only the other day, one of the best French Generals here, after
speaking of the decisive, world-embracing consequences of a victory at
the Dardanelles, went on to say, "But we ought to be in France." Seeing
my surprise he added, "Yes, I am quite illogical, I admit, but until our
nine _departements_ are freed from the Boche, world strategy and tactics
may go to the devil for me."