HELP FOR ITALY.
FURTHER information has only confirmed what we said last week as to the causes of the Italian disaster. They were, as we supposed, political and psychological rather than military. The Germans had been careful to introduce into such Italian minds as were ready to grow a crop of injurious thoughts, the suggestion that the whole Italian people were the victims and cat's-paws of Great Britain. Unhappily there was evidence which seemed to fit in with this ridiculous theory. For some time Italian industries have been semi-starved for want of coal. Every properly informed person knows the reason ; shipping is scarce and freights
are terribly high. Another very serious fact is the shortage of food. As we all know, there is a world-wide shortage, and in Italy the scarcity is being felt with peculiar intensity because of the exceptional failure of Italy s own food supply. That there has been real hardship in Italy we cannot doubt, and we sympathize with the sufferers with all our hearts. Now imagine the effect which could be produced upon soldiers only too conscious of want in their own homes by a remarkably dexterous and mendacious campaign of suggestion on the part of Germany. This campaign was conducted partly by missives projected from aeroplanes, and partly through the medium of malcontents and persons ill- disposed towards the Allies in Italy. The Italian troops who were chiefly affected by what we may call Maximalist or Leninite thought were troops which had been comparatively inactive while the splendid Italian. advances were achieved further south. It is plain that these troops let the Germans pass through almost without firing a shot. They must have deliberately retreated for sonic twelve miles with their backs
to the enemy. Ye are certain that the German intrigue affected but a very small proportion of the splendid Its tan Army, but the failure of this sector was disastrous to the, whole line. Englishmen still keep a firm faith in the great fighting quality of the Italian Army. It has the true Latin élan in battle.
Now let us look at the misfortunes of Italy in their bearing upon our own strategy. It has been suggested that if two or three months ago Great Britain and France had sent large numbers of troops to the Italian front, General Cadorna advance could easily have been pressed as far as Trieste ; that Austria, already shaken with misgivings and weariness, would have disappeared from the war ; and that the end we all have in view would already have been reached. There is a certain class of mind which unceasingly tortures itself with thoughts of what might have happened if some other plan than the one actually chosen had been adopted. People with this type of mind are conscious only of the disappoint- ments of our own programme ; they reckon up nothing but the brilliant hypothetical successes of the plans which have been rejected. It seems to us as plain as anything in military affairs can possibly be that if the Germans had been in our place they would have made the campaign in Flanders their main and almost exclusive concern and would never have swerved from it. They would have regarded all attempts to wander off elsewhere as the irrational promptings of a ndn- military brain. The Germans move round the inside of a geographical circle ; the Allies have to take the considerably longer route along the outside of that circle ; and moreover, they are necessarily provided with very much worse lines of communication. To fly about from one point to another on the outside of the circumference is the way of madness. Naturally the Germans would like us to do it, but if we were to do it they would laugh us out of existence and wonder why we had never studied the cardinal strategical principle of concentrating a vast preponderance of strength at the vital point. We cannot be too thankful that in the earlier part of the war we did not commit ourselves to a huge cam- paign so far afield that partly through want of ships and partly through the length and difficulty of our communi- cations, we could not have managed to maintain our armies. The virtue of our position in Flanders is that it is near at hand, and so long as we hold the Channel we can supply the Army with the greatest possible facility and speed. More- over, the Germans themselves consider Belgium by far the most valuable piece of territory which they hold.
We are far from saying, of course, that it was a mistake to go to Salonika, Palestine, and elsewhere. We believe that those moves have amply justified themselves, and that this will be generally admitted when the war conies to be surveyed as a whole. To confess this is very far, however, from saying that these campaigns can compare in importance with that in Flanders. If large numbers of British and French troops had been hurried off to Italy some months ago, there would have been no certainty, and indeed no likelihood, that their presence would have stopped the disastrous German political campaign among the Italian soldiers. The result would have been to involve the British and French troops in the reverse. Meanwhile we should have abandoned our opportunities in Flanders. At this moment we probably should not be looking down upon the Germans from the command- ing eminence of Paaschendaele, which overlooks not only the plain in front of our Army, but every one of the few nerghbouring heights still held by the Germans. Prompt help, of course, can and must be sent to Italy. We are satisfied that this is being done, but in the main the truism necessarily holds good that Italy will be most helped by winning the war. And the way to win the war is not to oblige the Germans by doing what they want, but to hold resolutely to our course in Flanders. Our job is to beat the German Army, and we can beat it more easily in Flanders than anywhere else. If this should not be readily understood by every person in Italy, it will be the duty of every patriotic man here, and every patriotic Italian, to explain the truth. Italian people must be informed of our absolute sincerity and our unchangeable resolve to stand by them, but they must also be informed that the plans of the Allies, and of Italy herself, would not be served, but would actually be defeated, by subtracting something from a great strategical idea and nervously scurrying hither and thither to make a show and impress public opinion at a par- ticular point or at a particular moment.
The reasoning which we have applied to the criticism that we ought to have shown more adaptability and changed our main strategy applies with equal force to the proposal that there ought to be a single command for the Allied arms. We admit, as we have always admitted, the peculiar advantage which Germany possesses in the fact that the will of a single body, If not of a single man, can be forced upon the whole military apparatus of the Central Powers. We cannot discuss the matter here, but for numerous reasons we are convinced that the disadvantage, if such it be, of a duplication of command in the Entente Alliance is inevitable. Surely Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson are giving us magnificent results. They are admired and trusted by everybody. We do not want to see their personal power put into commission. We do not want them to be either made greater than they are by artificial means, or made less powerful in practice. Let us avoid all recriminations and regrets for what might have been, but probably never could have been, and let us " get on with the war " as a united people and a united Alliance under conditions which promise us a great and positive success however long it may he delayed.
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