But if the shove drags on at its present
pace of less than a mile and four thousand prisoners a week over the
limited Somme front only, if nothing is attempted elsewhere to increase
the area of pressure, [*This was written originally before the French
offensive at Verdun.] then the intolerable stress and boredom of the war
will bring about a peace long before the Germans are decisively crushed.
But the war, universally detested, may go on into 1918 or 1919. Food
riots, famine, and general disorganisation will come before 1920, if it
does. The Allies have a winning game before them, but they seem unable
to discover and promote the military genius needed to harvest an
unquestionable victory. In the long run this may not be an unmixed evil.
Victory, complete and dramatic, may be bought too dearly. We need not
triumphs out of this war but the peace of the world.
This war is altogether unlike any previous war, and its ending, like its
development, will follow a course of its own. For a time people's minds
ran into the old grooves, the Germans were going _nach Paris_ and _nach
London_; Lord Curzon filled our minds with a pleasant image of the
Bombay Lancers riding down _Unter den Linden._ But the Versailles
precedent of a council of victors dictating terms to the vanquished is
not now so evidently in men's minds.
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