TOPICS OF THE DAY .
WAR AND DISTRACTION.
WAR is like the conduct of life in general. If it were possible to carry out literally certain copybook rules as to strategy, tactics, and the combat, war would be the easiest thing in the world. You would only have to say : " This is a case for the application of Rule 15," and the trick would be done. In the same way, if we could obey absolute propositions in regard to human conduct, men would need no directors in the field of morals. There again you would only have to turn up the rule and -go by it. As however Stevenson noted in a famous passage, when you come down to the details of life you find that honesty is not as easy as blind-man's-buff. Pilate was not jesting, but in the deadliest and grimmest earnest, when he asked : " What is truth ? " In war the necessity for modifying fixed rules and tempering absolutism with opportunism is even more marked. One good, or apparently good, reason for deflecting his course of action comes huddling on another till the amazed strategist or tactician sees his imperative rule absolutely " snowed under " by exceptions due to necessity. Certain laws seemed absolutely immutable, and yet in practice he is always wistfully regarding them at a great distance—fixing his eyes upon a beautiful marble model and making shapeless mud-pies as his nearest imitation !
Take the present position of the war. We are not pessimists now any more than we have been in the past. On the contrary, we regard the general military situation as exceedingly good, in spite of our Russian anxieties, and believe that we never were in more prosperous case since the war began. And yet how far things are from the ideals of the student of the abstract principles of war ! The greatest and most far-reaching of all these principles is that of prosecuting all military operations with the utmost possible vigour, and of not allowing any dis- tractions to deflect the Generalissimo's hand from the main object. " Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate "—" Engage the enemy more closely "—" Never let yourself be dis- tracted by minor considerations." These form the vade- mecum of the commander, and it might truly be said that, though no one has ever been able to reach these ideals in their completeness, the man who wins the war is the man who most nearly conforms to them.
The victor's palm goes in the last resort to him who keeps his hold on his enemy's throat when he is being stung in the face by &swarm of wasps, or has his shins savagely hacked by some demon dwarf who has managed to creep in between the enemy's legs. Both in our naval and military policy we see the evils of distraction, though let us say frankly that in a great many eases the ill effect of- these distractions is not due either to our sailors and soldiers or to our statesmen, but to the overmastering force of circumstances. All that one can safely say on the point is : You will be certain to have a good many distractions of necessity, so don't add to them 'and make them worse by allowing yourself to be decoyed by a clever and desperate enemy into minor distractions, designed by him for the very purpose of • keeping you off your main business.' The Germans, in high cabal with the force of cir- ciunstances, have proved themselves past-masters in the art adistraction. Take, for example, our force at Gaza. Enemy worries and threats in regard to the Canal and the invasion of Egypt at last drove us to abandon what was probably the wiser policy of. saying: 'Waste your money and your strength and energy in the desert as much as you like. We shall always be ready for you when you get within six miles of the Canal.' Instead of saying that, and sticking to it, we let the distraction get .upon our nerves, and first let it- make us keep too many troops in Egypt, and then engage in too successful and too fascinating a campaign over the' El-Arish route. In that campaign we have no doubt accomplished marvellous things, and done what the Germans and Turks tried to do far better than they have done. But all the same it was a distraction, as the enemy meant it to be. The Mesopotamian campaign, again, originated in clever enemy distractions based upon the misfortune that we had arranged to obtain our petrol supply from wells in partibus infidelium. Greece, further, became a very cleverly engineered distraction of the enemy, and though Salonika must 'probably be put down to a necessarian " account, it has had all the bad results of a distraction.
No doubt all these distractions have got another side to them. When the whole history of the war comes to be .written, we 1348,11.find, we led Autre,Ahat they have proved very heavy burdens to our enemy ; but :then,- although it may sound strange to say so at the moment, the enemy has been in the position of the weaker Power ever since the first year of the war, and has therefore been compelled to try the universal refuge of the weaker against the stronger—the policy of distraction. If a man has got you by the throat and will strangle you if he only holds on long enough, your refuge is in distraction. You hack his shins, bite his wrists, have a swarm of bees let loose on him, set his house and hayricks alight, and induce an urchin to shout " Fire ! " as loudly as possible. That is what Germany is doing. But she is doing it not because she is strong but because she is weak.
If the enemy had not been weaker than we were at sea, they would never have put so much energy into submarines and have abandoned all attempt to beat us 'on the high seas. The submarine in the last resort is shin-hacking. Air raids over these islands are an even better example. If the enemy had got command of the air, or saw any possibility of attaining it, they would not be such fools as to waste their bombs on open towns, or risk their airships in raids which, at the best, only kill non-combatants. Of course, if we are foolish enough to use up aircraft wanted for the main purposes of the front in patrolling England—in a word, if we allow a few wasp-stings on our arms and neck to make us relax our grip on the enemy's throat—they have proved excellent instruments of war. If however, we pay no attention to the stings, then the enemy has lost, not gained, by his policy of distraction. Distractions, in truth, are a gambler's throw. If you are lucky, and the enemy has not got sticking-power, they may prove successful, as they did in the case of Frederick the Great. He lived and thrived on the policy of distractions and bluff. If, however, we have self-respect and sanity enough not to be put off our game by distractions, we are bound to beat the distractor.
The policy of distractions is being worked, and in the future will be worked with even greater dexterity and desperation than it is being worked now. If we hold on grimly, and diagnose it as it ought to be diagnosed, as a sign of the enemy's failure, we shall very soon see the other aide of the shield- Above all, we must pay no heed to the nervous and excitable if well-meaning people who will shout " Fire, danger, death, and destruction ! " whenever the enemy manage to set fire to a thatched roof.
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