ic superiority the reasons for such faith.

Of the tribe of pessimists I count some superlative specimens among my
immediate acquaintances. The explanation of their cases is, I contend,
threefold. First, they lack faith, not merely in the Allied arms, but
in anything. They have not the faculty of faith. Secondly, they
unconsciously enjoy depression, and this instinct distorts all
phenomena for them. Thus they exhibited no satisfaction whatever at
the capture of Przemysl full of men and munitions by the Russians,
whereas the recapture of Przemysl empty of men and munitions by the
Germans filled them with delicious woe. Thirdly, they lack patience,
and therefore a long-sustained effort gets on their nerves. Others I
can inoculate with my optimism, but the effect passes quickly, and
each succeeding reinoculation has been less and less effective, with
the monotonous questioning, ever more sardonic in tone: "How can you
be deluded by the official bulletins?" or: "What do you know about
war, to make you so cocksure?"

The truth is that I am not deluded by the official bulletins. I don't
know how long it is since I learnt to appreciate official bulletins at
their true value, but it is a long while ago. A full perception of
the delusiveness of official bulletins can only be obtained by reading
histories of the war. The latest I have read are those of Mr. John
Buchan and Mr. Hillaire Belloc. (Mr. Buchan's is good. Mr. Belloc's is
more than good: it is--apart from a few failures in style, due either
to fatigue or to the machinery of dictation--absolutely brilliant,
both militarily and politically. I am inclined to rate the last dozen
pages of Mr. Belloc's book as the finest piece of writing yet produced
by the war.) And when one compares, in these works, the coherent,
impartial, and convincing accounts of, say, the first month of the
war, with the official bulletins of the Allies during that month, one
marvels that even officialism could go so far in evasion and
duplicity, and the reputation of official bulletins is ruined for the
whole duration of the conflict. No wonder the contents of the Allied
newspapers in that period inspired the Germans with a scornful
incredulity, which nothing that has since happened can shake.

It is not that official bulletins are incorrect; they are incomplete,
and, therefore, misleading. The policy which frames them seems now to
be utterly established, but my motion that it is a mistaken policy
r