quel of such a tale of human suffering as has seldom been equaled even in distant campaigns, we have to reflect that the conditions described have been absolutely swept away so far as the Mesopotamian campaign is concerned. The appallingly defective medical service has given place to ample and scientific arrangements; the War Office with firmness and success has taken the control of the Mesopotamian expedition out of the faltering hands of the Government of India; not one of those officers or officials who are censured in any serious degree for the early catastrophes of the campaign remains to repeat his failure on the spot. We Englishmen are slow starters, but we improve as we go on, and we end generally with more dash than our opponents. We say this, not in any way in mitigation of judgment, or in condonation of the dangerous doctrine of "muddling through," but simply to point out that, as the Mesopotamian Report refers to a past order of things in the field, there is no need or excuse now for that sort of public recrimination which would impede the conduct of the war. There must be no exhausting digressions. The publication of the Report at this time will be justified in the exact degree in which it enables us to avoid the mistakes it discloses. For our part, we think the public may be trusted to use it wisely. that belief we welcome it. It is written with high courage and an obvious desire to be impartial. It is a singularly honest piece of work.

In

If we ourselves had written the conclusions, we should have been inclined to lay proportionately more blame on the utterly mistaken system of military administration in India --which dates back to 1905-than on individual officers. At the same time, we do not detect in the tone of the Report the least desire to save one

group of persons by making scapegoats of another group. That familiar offense-it would be a peculiarly odious offense in time of war-is absent here. The distribution of blame serves no prejudices. It may be said that in war the individual should always be blamed more than the system, for in war no man is fit for a responsible position unless he can rise above the circumstances of his time and place. But there are some systems of administration which would thwart the efforts of the very ablest brains, and if the man nominally in supreme command of the system has found that it is his master and not his servant, he is apt to reconcile himself to confusion and impotence. We take the military administrative system in India, as it has been since 1905, to be of that kind. No single man could do all that is required of the Commander-inChief under that system. It is one of the most complete designs of overcentralization ever invented. We can well believe that many soldiers could I have done far better than Sir Beauchamp Duff. His achievement was a lamentably poor one, but we shall not learn the lessons best worth learning if we fail to look to the origins of error in the zest of hunting individuals. It will be remembered that in 1905 Lord Kitchener, who was then Commander-in-Chief in India, desired that the duties of the Military Member of the Council should be merged in those of the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Curzon, who was Viceroy, resisted, pointing out that an excessive burden would be placed on the Commander-in-Chief, and above all arguing that the military element would become predominant. The Commanderin-Chief would be independent; the link between his office and the Viceroy's Council would be broken; the ancient balance would be upset. take an analogy, Lord Kitchener's

To

proposal was as though a Commanderin-Chief here should propose the abolition of the office of Secretary for War-the civilian official responsible to Parliament for the interpretation and presentation of military affairs to the nation. The significance of the dispute between Lord Curzon and Lord Kitchener was not generally understood here. The Government of the day chose to support Lord Kitchener, who had all the repute of a brilliant soldier engaged on a great act of military reform, and Lord Curzon resigned. One of the important deductions to be made from the Mesopotamian Report is that even purely military ends are not served by making soldiers independent of control and responsible for excessive burdens. The balances of democratic or quasidemocratic administrations are very wise and sane. You cannot upset them without injuring the very causes you may wish to advance. Implicit in the Mesopotamian Report is a very remarkable vindication of the attitude which Lord Curzon took up in 1905. Writing on September 2d, 1905, we said of Lord Kitchener's scheme:

...

It is a most serious change, a revolution in truth, and one which we do not hesitate to say ought not to have been made without the previous consent of Parliament. . . . The Government did not understand the character of the far-reaching change they were approving. But the absence of insight in ruler as to the effect of their orders is of all causes that which most certainly enfeebles Empires, and destroys confidence in the ability of those rulers to govern.

Only by a surprising power of administrative recovery, and above all by the efforts of gallant soldiers in the field, has the cause that enfeebles Empires proved to be much less injurious than it seemed at one time

likely to be. But it must not be forgotten that what we have called a power of recovery was really the bold substitution of War Office control for Indian control. The Indian system remains to be completely overhauled.

To turn from the origins of error in the past to more recent origins, we find a very bad division of control between the India Office, which was responsible for the "policy" of the Mesopotamian campaign, and the Government of India, who were responsible for the "management." The authorities here were apparently more enthusiastic than those in India, but the latter were appointed the active agents. From the heights of Simla they presided over the Mesopotamian campaign; they not only did not visit Mesopotamia, they did not even visit Bombay, which was the true base of the operations. They behaved as though they were ignorant of the peculiar difficulties of navigation in the Tigris-and therefore of the necessity of supplying suitable vessels as soon as possible—and indeed as though they thought that a force could somehow be maintained far up the river without a special fleet of supply vessels at all. Both here and in India the civilian authorities were badly misled by their military advisers. But we may take the chief points in order. Sir John Nixon, after establishing control of Lower Mesopotamia, submitted a plan for advancing on Bagdad. General Townshend in trying to carry out this scheme protested to Sir John Nixon against being asked to reach Bagdad with a seriously inadequate force; but Sir John Nixon's "confident optimism" convinced the Cabinet, who were admittedly ruled largely by a political consideration-the desirability of a striking success in order to counteract the presumed bad effect on the Moslem world of our failure

at the Dardanelles. The Report says that the advance on Bagdad, as undertaken by General Townshend, was "an offensive movement based upon political and military miscalculations and attempted with tired and insufficient forces and inadequate preparation." Responsibility is apportioned in the following order: Sir John Nixon, "whose confident optimism was the main cause of the decision to advance"; Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy; Sir Beauchamp Duff, the Commander-in-Chief in India; Sir Edmund Barrow, Military Secretary to the India Office; Mr. Austen Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for India; and the War Committee of the Cabinet. All the evidence laid before the Commission showed that the expedition was very badly equipped. The shortage of transport was fatal. "The want of foresight and provision for the most fundamental needs of the expedition reflects discredit upon the organizing aptitude of all the authorities."

As for the medical arrangements, which broke down worse than those in the Crimean War, the Report adopts the findings of the VincentBingley Commission, which inquired into the details on the spot. From a very early stage the sick and wounded underwent great suffering. This increased after Ctesiphon, and culminated during the Kut relief operations, when there was a complete breakdown. Surgeon-General Babtie, Director of Medical Services in India, and Surgeon-General Hathaway are specially blamed. The Commission censure the attempts to conceal the medical deficiencies. A most harrowing description by Major Carter of the withdrawal of the wounded by river to Basra is given, but the official report was: "The medical arrangements under circumstances of considerable difficulty worked splendidly."

When Major Carter endeavored to get matters improved he was threatened with arrest by General Cowper, who was simply passing on the ill-humor with which he was treated by Sir Beauchamp Duff. Major Carter played a brave and humane part, and was rewarded by being called an interfering faddist. Sir Alfred Keogh said: "The medical arrangements connected with the Army in India had been for years and years most disgraceful." In blaming individuals the public will, no doubt, be guided by the feeling that if miscalculations and ignorance may possibly be pardoned in themselves, they cannot be forgiven when they are due to a blind and lofty arrogance. There are unhappily too many examples of this. When General Cowper, who was responsible for the transport, sent an urgent telegram about the conditions, this telegram was transmitted to India by Sir Percy Lake. Sir Beauchamp Duff in replying to it rebuked Sir Percy Lake for the wording of the message and added: "Please warn General Cowper that if anything of this sort again occurs, or I receive any more querulous or petulant demands for shipping, I shall at once remove him from the force, and will refuse him any further employment of any kind." The tone of this unexampled message can excite nothing but indignation.

It is hard to believe, but the Government of India tried to manage the campaign on principles, of limited financial liability. Sir John Nixon asked for a railway from Basra to Nasariyeh, but this was refused on the ground of expense. "Of two things, one," is a specially true motto for those who make war. You must strike with all the resources that are demonstrably necessary or forswear the job altogether. The Government of India accepted the job, but they were too

much concerned all the time as to how deeply they would become entangled. With this limitation of their commitment was coupled a morbid concern for their own dignity when they deliberately chose to walk on insecure ground, and this accounts for the want of frankness-to use a mild term-in reporting the terrible defects which followed. The Viceroy accepted a great responsibility, and is judged accordingly, because, after the manner that had become fashionable in recent The Spectator.

years, he often acted without reference to his Council.

We must revert to our first theme. India has not traditionally produced bad soldiers and bad organizers. On the contrary, she has produced great soldiers and great organizers. The system for the past twelve years has been at fault. It has spread a rot in military administration. We cannot mend broken reputations, but we can and must repair the causes that create them.

The first unit of American troops has landed in France. It would be absurd to exaggerate the immediate military importance of this event. The force is, no doubt, composed of regular troops, fully trained, admirably disciplined, perfectly equipped, and led by officers of intelligence and skill. But it must necessarily be but a small body compared to the mighty hosts by whose side it will fight and to the German hordes whom it will confront. However few in numbers, its arrival is a sign to all men-an omen full of hope and promise to the friends of ordered freedom; a portent of defeat and ruin to her foes. None, we believe, can fail to read the sign aright. It means that, within a few months, great armies, drawn from a hundred millions of free American citizens, and furnished with all that the boundless resources of the Republic can supply, will begin to follow this first detachment across the Atlantic, and it means that these armies will be increased by successive reinforcements until a democratic peace has been wrung from a defeated Germany. It is a sure presage of that Allied victory which America and the Western Powers and peoples judge to be the indispensable condition

precedent of a peace that will endure. That is its military significance, and in this aspect alone its moral effect will be immeasurable. It will give added confidence to the Allied soldiers on all fronts, and to the nations behind them who have so stoutly borne the awful burdens of the war. It will at the same time deepen the discouragement of the enemy in the trenches and at home, a discouragement which already no arts can stay or can conceal. The pertinacious peace intrigues, diligently pursued through SO many obscure channels and with the assistance of such strange accomplices for many months, show that the "militarists" know the doom which is slowly but remorselessly drawing near to them. Herr Scheidemann has come back from Stockholm imbued with the gloomy conviction that peace is impossible "until Germany is completely democratized," and Herr Harden is filled with admiration for the success of the policy, which, with the modesty that is his own, he declares that Mr. Wil on has borrowed from himself. All the suppressions and all the distortions of the inspired Press cannot hide the landing of the American troops in Europe or convince them that it is

a matter of no moment. The Germans, and even the Austrians, know enough of the military resources of America, and of the indomitable vigor with which she uses them in war, not to feel a fresh chill at their hearts when they learn that her soldiers are already reaching the Western front.

But the unfurling of the Stars and Stripes in Europe beside the Union Jack and the Tricolor means more than a vast addition to our military strength, more than Allied victory, more even than a democratic peace. It is an earnest of all these, but it is also a symbol of that union of mind and feeling between the ordered democracies of England, France, and the United States, which promises to play the greatest part in moulding the future ideals and the future destinies of the world. This union, as we have more than once insisted, bids fair to rank forever amongst the great historic landmarks in the moral and poli ical history of mankind. It is too large and too near a thing for the boldest amongst us to gauge. In character, in extent, and in duration its results are past finding out. But we know that it is built on all that is best and most solid in the tried and trusted traditions of the three democracies who have combined with most success the blessings of progressive liberty and the blessings of stable order in their national life. We know that the principles in which these traditions have their roots are sacred, and that from them no evil can proceed. We feel that this union is good, and we look forward with eager hopefulness to the exalted visions which it foreshadows. Visions, traditions, and principles alike are all incompatible with the elementary dogmas of PrussoGerman Kultur and of its daughter "militarism." That is why we drew the sword and that is why the freest and the most pacific republicans on the

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earth have come to join us. The two schemes of thought and of life, autocracy and democracy, stand in deathgrips. One or other must conquer, and the conqueror will in large measure dictate the moral and political conceptions of the world. It is the conviction of this truth, slowly forced upon her by the studied barbarism and the studied duplicity of Germany and her accomplices, which has forced America to take her rightful place in the armies of freedom. Germans have been arguing on all sorts of grounds that American citizens really could not be convinced that they have anything to fight about, and their many agents in the United States are busy supporting the contention. They deplored conscription in America, as the sacrifice of "one of the most sacred principles of national life," just as they had deplored conscription in England. They took comfort in the reflection that America would find it hard to send and maintain a large army overseas, even if the expeditionary force were to escape the German submarines. In any event, they were confident that the American Army is "not to be taken seriously." Well, we shall see. That, as Herr Harden unkindly reminds his countrymen, is exactly what they said about the British Army in the autumn of 1914. The first fleet of American transports has already arrived. The men in these ships, and the millions they left behind them, know well what is the cause for which they are ready to sacrifice their all. It was defined for them and for the kindred democracies of the world once for all in the cemetery of Gettysburg. They are fighting that this world "under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." And for that cause they will fight to the death.