ntal terms, the German mind has gradually come, since
October, to regard the retention of Belgium as something quite
essential. And this because:--(_a_) It gives a most weighty asset in
the bargaining for peace. (_b_) It gives a seaboard against England.
(_c_) It provides ample munition, house-room, and transport facility,
without which the campaign in North-eastern France could hardly be
prolonged. (_d_) It puts Holland at the mercy of Germany, for she can,
by retaining Belgium, strangle Dutch trade, if she chooses to divert
her carriage of goods through Belgian ports. (_e_) It is a specific
conquest; the Government will be able to say to the German people, "It
is true we had to give up this or that, but Belgium is a definite new
territory, the occupation of which and the proposed annexation of
which is a proof of victory." (_f_) The retention of Belgium has been
particularly laid down as the cause of quarrel between Great Britain
and Germany; to retain Belgium is to mark that score against what is
now the special enemy of Germany in the German mind. (_g_) Antwerp is
the natural port for all the centre of Europe in commerce westward
over the ocean. (_h_) With Belgium may go the Belgian colonies--that
is, the Congo--for the possession of which Germany has worked
ceaselessly year in and year out during the last fifteen years by a
steady and highly subsidized propaganda against the Belgian
administration. She has done it through conscious and unconscious
agents; by playing upon the cupidity of French and British
Parliamentarians, of rum shippers, upon religious differences, and
upon every agency to her hand.

We may take it, then, that the retention of Belgium is in German eyes
now quite indispensable. "If I abandon Belgium," she says, "it is much
more than a strategic retreat; it is a political confession of
failure, and the moral support behind me at home will break down."

If I were writing not of calculable considerations, but of other and
stronger forces, I should add that to withdraw from Belgium, where so
many women and children have been massacred, so many jewels of the
past befouled or destroyed, so wanton an attack upon Christ and His
Church delivered, would be a loss of Pagan prestige intolerably
strong, and a triumph of all that against which Prussia set out to
war.

2. _Alsace-Lorraine._ But Alsace-Lorraine is also "indispensable." We
have seen on an earlier page what the retention of that territory
means