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commemorate his death. They will not go without it. If the Sacrament be not provided, they ask for it. At home there was never such a demand for it as exists at the front. There is a mystic sympathy between the trench and the Cross, between the soldier and his Saviour.

And yet, to those who willed the war and drank to the day of its coming, even the Cross has no sacredness. It is to them but a tool of war. An officer told me that during the German retreat from the Somme they noticed a peculiar accuracy in the enemy's firing. The shells followed an easily distinguishable course. So many casualties occurred from this accurate shelling that the officers set themselves to discover the cause. They found that the circle of shells had for its centre the cross-roads, and that at the cross-roads was a crucifix that stood up clearly as a landmark. Evidently the cross was being used to guide the gunners, and was causing the death of our men.

But a more remarkable thing came to light. The cross stood close to the road, and when the Germans retired they had sprung a mine at the crossroads to delay our advance. Everything near had been blown to bits by the explosion except the crucifix, but that had not a mark upon it. And yet it could not have escaped, except by a miracle. They therefore set themselves to examine the seeming miracle and came across one of the most astounding cases of fiendish cunning. They found that the Germans had made a concrete socket for the crucifix so that they could take it out or put it in at pleasure. Before blowing up the cross-roads they had taken the cross out of its socket and removed it to a safe distance; then, when the mine had exploded, they put the cross back so that it might be a landmark to direct

their shooting. And now they were making use of Christ's instrument of redemption as an instrument for men's destruction.

But our young officers resolved to restore the cross to its work of saving men. They waited till night fell, then removed the cross to a point a hundred or two yards to the left. When in the morning the German gunners fired their shells, their observers found that the shells fell too far wide of the cross and they could make nothing of the mystery. It looked as if some one had been tampering with their guns in the night. To put matters right they altered the position of their guns, so that once more the shells made a circle round the cross, and henceforth our soldiers were safe, for the shells fell harmlessly into the outlying fields. Nor was this the only time during their retreat when the Germans put the cross to this base use and were foiled in their knavery.

When a nation scraps the Cross of Christ and turns it into a tool to gain an advantage over its opponents, it becomes superfluous to ask who began the war, and folly to close our eyes to the horrors and depravities which are being reached in the waging of it.

There is a new judgment of the nations now proceeding, and who shall predict what shall be? The Cross of Christ is the arbiter, and our attitude toward it decides our fate. I have seen the attitude of our soldiers toward the Cross at Neuve Chapelle and toward that for which it stands; and I find more comfort in their reverence for Christ and Christianity than in all their guns and impediments of war.

The Cross of Christ towers above the wrecks of time, and those nations will survive which stand beneath its protecting arms in the trenches of righteousness, liberty, and truth.

REVERIE

BY AMORY HARE

It is so still here in the dusky wood;

Only the moths have motion where they spin
And flutter through the dark.

There in the deeper dusk the cedars brood.

No warmth of fields, no voice of meadow-lark
Floats here, no breeze may wander in
So deep to bear me company.

I, who am so companioned in a field,
Am lonely here, and rather sleepily

Afraid. Just now some little beast has squealed
And made me creep; so that I wonder why

I come here to the wood at end of day

After the glow has faded from the sky.

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define the 'strategy of the political sciences' and the integral strategic equation which makes its application possible. This equation contains six unknown quantities: military, naval, geographical, ethnographical, politicoeconomic, and national-psychologic. The facts established by three and a half years of war prove that it is absolutely indispensable to find these six unknown quantities before undertaking any operation capable of exerting an appreciable influence on the general development of the war. Indeed, the present amazing and perilous state of affairs is susceptible of this explanation which summarizes all others: the general operations of the Staff at Berlin have been planned and carried out in accordance with the strategy of the political sciences. On the other hand, the operations of the Entente have been conducted in such utter ignorance of this strategy, that none of them could reasonably be expected to succeed.

It is of supreme importance for Americans to understand quite clearly the fundamental cause of the strategic errors of the Entente. Indeed, such a clear understanding is the only means by which the United States can avoid sacrifices in men and money infinitely greater than are necessary. I shall, therefore, treat this part of my subject by appealing to the unmitigated truth, without regard for other considerations.

THE THEORY THAT THE WESTERN FRONT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE

I propose to show that, as a matter of fact, all the strategic errors of the Entente are derived from this: that the Western front has been regarded as the most important front. The first source of this idea is the incredible but undoubted ignorance of the Pan-Germanist scheme on the part of the leaders of the Entente. This ignorance is a phe

nomenon which I set down, but which I cannot explain.

The Pangermanist scheme dates from 1895. Since then it has been elaborated in Germany in thousands of lectures. Innumerable pamphlets, spread broadcast, have made it familiar to an immense majority of the sixty millions of Germans. Moreover, it was for the reason that this scheme was carefully devised a long while beforehand that the Germans became earnestly desirous for its execution, and, generally speaking, went cheerfully forth to war, believing, doubtless, that it would be short, but firmly convinced that it would bring them enormous booty—a bait which has always set the Germans in motion from the beginnings of history.

Now, in spite of the extraordinary publicity of the Pangermanist scheme throughout Germany for twenty-two years, the guiding spirits of the Entente did not believe in its existence during the first two years of the war. I agree that this seems incredible, but I receive constantly so many new proofs of its truth that to doubt it is impossible.

This ignorance has had this result; that the Allies have failed to realize that Germany made war, before all else, to make the Hamburg-Persian Gulf plan an accomplished fact, and that that achievement, by reason of its inevitable consequences, would suffice to assure Germany of the dominion of the world. It is this failure to grasp the real war-aim pursued by Germany, which explains why the supreme importance of the Danube front - which was the key of the war, which the Allies had in their possession, and which it was relatively easy for them to retain — did not receive serious attention while it was time. At the opening of hostilities, and even for a very long time thereafter, the leaders of the Allies were convinced that Germany was fighting to rid herself of France, and

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This quasi-'sportive' idea of the war was particularly prevalent among the British. Having in reality no military traditions, they regarded the conflict as a gigantic boxing-match, in which the best 'slugger' would necessarily be the victor. So it came about that to the British the war was, and perhaps still is, solely a matter of endurance. On the other hand, once the war was begun by Germany, the question of Alsace-Lorraine inevitably came to the front for the French. Must she not be set free first of all?

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For these diverse reasons, the French and British were inclined to argue that the chief theatre of operations was necessarily where the chief adversaries were, and, at the same time, to all appearance, their principal and mutual interests that is to say, in the West. This conviction once formed, this consequence was deduced from it in London and Paris, namely, that the Balkans and Turkey could have no serious effect on the result of the war; that it was not only useless, therefore, but positively dangerous, to send a considerable force to the East, because the principal front-that in the West, where everything was destined to be decided would thus be deprived of the benefit of armies which the Entente, taken by surprise by the war, had been obliged to raise and equip in haste, and had no right to send a long way from home.

But it is evident that the Western front could not be the principal one from the Allies' standpoint - the one, that is to say, on which to bring about a final decision. For, ever since the day when it was demonstrated that fortified fronts, which can be very rapidly increased in depth by trenches, deep shelters, and barbed-wire entanglements, cannot be quickly pierced, a demonstration which was almost absolute in October, 1914, it has been contrary to common sense for the Allies to hope that they could obtain on the Western front a victory so overwhelming as to compel Germany to abandon the Hamburg-Persian Gulf idea. But this controlling point of view was unheeded a perfectly natural consequence of the Allied ignorance of the Pangermanist scheme.

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However that may be, the theory that the Western front is all important has been repeatedly laid down by Colonel Repington, the military critic of the London Times.1

Finding myself compelled, in order to make more clear my indispensable demonstration, to show how far Colonel Repington has gone astray, and what infinite harm his errors have done to the cause of the Entente by reason of the mighty influence of the Times, which is almost a national organ, I conceive that no sinister motive can be attributed to me if I make, by way of preamble, this statement. I was one of the first Frenchmen who favored the Franco-British rapprochement, at a time when public opinion in my country was opposed to that policy. To the powerful Times, which has many a time assisted me in propagating my ideas, I am most grateful. To me personally, therefore, it is really distressing to take issue with one of its chief collaborators. But according to my honest belief, Colonel Repington, because 1 Now of the Morning Post.

of the extraordinary influence of the organ in which he writes, has been instrumental in leading the Allies to commit errors in strategy which have cost millions of men and endangered the issue of the war. I feel, therefore, in duty bound to call the attention of the Allies to the immense amount of harm done by Colonel Repington. His constantly repeated forecasts have this characteristic in common, that for three years and a half they have been most strikingly falsified by events.

But the Repington peril still exists. In fact, even to-day a large number of Allied newspapers continue to reproduce his forecasts because they appear in the Times as coming from one having authority, although any sort of credit should long ago have been denied to him. But his failure to reason from indubitable indications and the most notorious facts seems to be complete, if we may judge from certain passages in an interview on the general condition of affairs given by the colonel to Le Temps, October 10, 1917.

The situation [declared the military critic of the Times at that late date] is that the Boches are getting the worst of it except in Boche communiqués, and that they know it. Moreover, every time that we go into battle they are beaten. . . . Our losses are slight now because we are proceeding according to the plan of an offensive with a limited objective. . . . Our victories are almost automatic.... Italy and Russia still have very strong effective forces. ... Russia? Yes, she is passing through a serious crisis, but we must not lose confidence in her. Russia is a jack-in-the-box, and the winter is working on her side.

Less than a month after these statements the Italians suffered a serious disaster, Russia went to pieces, and Roumania was reduced to impotence. Now, these disastrous events might very easily have been forecast several months before, with the help of the fre

quent and accordant intelligence from Italy and Russia. But Colonel Repington has been so hypnotized by the Western front that he has consistently refused to give any weight to what was going on in the rest of Europe. We proceed to trace the chronological development and the influence of his theory.

At the end of August, 1914, Colonel Repington set forth his own conception of the most important front when he described the part to be played by the Russian armies on the one hand and by the Franco-British armies on the other, disclosing at the same time his idea of German strategy. I quote from Le Temps of September 1, 1914:—

We must fight, even if we have to fall back to the Atlantic, without allowing Germany to overwhelm us. It is absolutely indispensable for her to have her Metz and her Sedan, and a long war would be disastrous for her with her largely industrial population, her business paralyzed, her coast blockaded. Her entire strategy is based on these considerations, and it should be our aim to bring this plan to naught and to fight with all our strength, without endangering the welfare of our people by brilliant coups which would expose us to attack.

It is fear that is behind the present German tactics, — the vandalism and the policy of terrorizing the civil population; it is fear —not physical fear, but fear of the consequences to her if France and England were not quickly and completely crushed.

Russia, for her part, is performing the function of a 'steam-roller.' Her rôle in the war is most important, and final triumph depends in large measure on the way in which she carries it out. The Franco-British armies have diverted the main hold of the German armies from Russia, and while the Allies operating in France keep their claws in that bulk, Russia must take advantage of the opportunity.

The results obtained by her thus far indicate that such is her purpose.

Taking into account the season of the year and its natural concomitants, Russia should reach Berlin within two months; if, at the end of that time our claws are still

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