"AS IN 1812."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 99, 22 October 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

"AS IN 1812."

A STUPID DELUSION

By H. HAMILTON FYFE in the ''London Daily Mail."

(The Russian victory in the Gulf of Riga proves one point of this article, which was written before the German naval operations had begun.) Suddenly within the last few days everyone has begun to discuss the question, " Will the Germane try to get to Petrograd?" Until a few days ago the newspapers were forbidden to mention the German plan of advance against the capital. Then suddenly the cork was pulled and a rush of 6urmise followed. But there has been no panic. The first point to be settled is, " Why should they want to come?" The answer to that is, "They want to do which can harm and humiliate Kussia and force her to make peace " It is true they want most of all to defeat the Pusisan Army. But suppose the Rui< an Army declines to *v broken up; suppose that by skilful manoeuvring it escapes the giant pinfois which the German General L-taff hoped to be able to close around it — what can the enemy do then? He must do something (1) To keep up the spirit of his armies, which have endured such long-continued and such painful exertions, losing heavily all the time; (2)ln order to be able to represent to the German nation that victory and the end of the war have been brought nearer to them.

If he could do this, and at the same time create a situation which would nilow him to transfer a large numoer of troops to the west, he would certanly miprove his position for the moment, though he cannot in the long run avoid the disaster which is bound to over';ike him if the Allies stand firm. TEST OF THE MAP. . Well, can he do this? Is it within the bounds of reasonable hope and fear? Take a map (see Page 5) and see. If you asr.ime with the Germans that Russia, for want of equipment, may for some months be prevented from striking blows and compelled to continue parrying them, what is there to hinder the Germans when they have finished driving her armies back, from fortifying a defensive front, as they have done in the west?

"Impossible/' you say. "The front is too long." The front is a long one, certainly. From the Gulf of Riga to the Roumanian frontier is a distance ol 560 miles. But there is no impossibility about the holding of such a trout by German means. "A machine gun every 200 yards" is the lowest estimate 1 have seen of their fortified strength in France and Flanders, iney theme-elves say they have twice as many, to wit, 95,000, which would give one to every hundred yards. Their armament factories are turning out these weapons with rapid regularity. The part of wisdom is to suppose that they can do.what they say they can do. It is better to take too many precautions than too few.

Suppose, then, a deadlock established on thie long front and a considerable force carried back to the west, would there remain enough Germans to be employed in an advance upon Petrogmd? Remembering that there are still under arms at least two m:iiion Austrians and Hungarians, I think we had better admit this probability also.

It is only upon a flank that any push forward could be made; and, further than this, only upon a flank which is protected by some natural barrier. The left tl.:nk of the German defensive front would be protected by the Baltic Sea. So long as the Russian Baltic Fleet is "in being" it puts any advance in the capital along the coast almost out of question. "But," say the Germans, "we will either defeat this fleet or drive it into a harbour where it will be frozen up. Then we shall have a secure line of communications by water, which lias immense advantages over a land line." Do not dismiss this contemptuously as "bluff." The Germans have boasted, it is true, that they would do many things which they have not done. But they have done many things which they en id they would do and at which we have laughed. THE STUPID I*l2 PARALLEL. Do not either pruss the "as in 1812" comparison farther than it will fairly go, when everything is taken into account. It is argued that Moscow must still be the most attractive magnet for a hostile force entering Russia. Why? On account of tradition? The Germans care little for that. They know, as Mr. JvlenschiKoff points out in the "Novoe Yremya", that conditions have altered since Napoleon's time. They do not suppose, as he did, that Moscow is the "real capital" and the key to the Empire. Petrograd is, as they are well aware, the political centre, and it is only 260 miles from Riga. Moscow is twice as far. "Do not believe," continues Mr. Menschikoff, "that this war can be a repetition' of 1812. IT IS SOMETHING MUCH MORE SERIOUS." In 1812 there were no railways, no fortified fronts, no heavy artillery, no machine jruns, no magazine rifles. As war machine Napoleon's Army cannot be set against the Prussian organisation. This is a more sinistet slaughterengine than Napoleon ever even conceived in his brisk Corsican imagination. Just because it is so efficient for its purpose, the purpose of death, we have got to go on until it has been destroyed and stamped into a mire of blood, so that it can never come to life again. We may in time defeat it utterly by a rain of blow 6, each heavier than the last, as a boxer who has kept "something to spare "all through the contest, knocks out his opponent in the final round. Or we may, by wearing him down, conquer him in less spectacular fashion. But we need not hope that we shall lead him on into a situation from which there is no escaping save at the expanse of a disaster such as befell Napoleon. There is no chance of that. Nobody who has read aright the lessons of war can think there is.

RUSSIA'S UNSHAKEABLE SPIRIT. But although they are too wary to he caught in unconcealed traps, the German war-lords do make very foolish mistakes in their estimates of national character. They think that the capture of Petrograd would paralyse the Russian nation into surrender. That ts a delusion no less stupid than that which madclhem believe the British nation would oe terrorised by their futile submarine warfare. To Russians (I except •' tchinovniks"—officials) Petrograd does not represent Russia anv more than New York represent* the. United Stales. Russians would not he disheartened if the Germans took Petrograd; Nothing is capable of disheartening Russia now —unless it were a slipping baek of the.Government into its former sleepy, hidebound,- red-tapy, incomj>etent wavn. And that is inconceivable. Men like Ttodzianko, President

of th&Duma; like Pofchkoff, who is to be the new Munition Minister; like Rabutchinski, the energetic Moscow Rabutchinski, the energetic business man; like Count Bobrinski, the Con-_ 6ervativo whom the misdeeds of the War Office have transformed into a Radical Progressive—these men would not allow any slipping back, even if the ofßcias6 were rash enough to attempt it.

The making of munitions on a large scale has begun. The country is working behind the Army. The Army knows this and has takon fresh heart. We hope it may be possible to keep the enemy where he is now and throw the pieces back across the frontiers. But even if that be not possible, even if the Germans should do what they have lad their troops they intend to do, that is advance on Petragrad, Russia's spirit will ont quail. She will go on preparing for "The Day."