st empires in
the world, and we hold them in our grip. We are fighting not for a few
milliard francs and a disaffected province, but for priceless spoils
and European hegemony. Moreover, Belgium, which we possess and mean to
keep, is a greater prize than the temporary occupation of Paris.
Besides, postponement is not abandonment. Whether we take the French
capital one month or another is but a detail.

"And, over and above all this, we have reached the sea and are within
a few miles of England's shores. Furthermore, Russia's army, which we
lured into East Prussia until it fancied it was about to invest
Koenigsberg, has been driven back beyond Wirballen far into Tsardom,
with appalling losses of men and material. Her other forces, which
several weeks ago boasted that they were about to capture Cracow, will
soon be driven out of Przemysl and Lemberg. Libau will fall into our
hands. Riga is sure to be ours, and Warsaw itself will finally admit
our victorious troops. Does this look like defeat at the hands of our
enemies? And German soil is still as immune from invasion as though it
were girded by the sea."

In all our forecasts one important element of calculation was
invariably left out of account: the consequences of our blunders,
past, present and future. And these have added enormously to our
difficulties and dangers. Not the least made was the mistake in
allowing the two German warships _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to enter the
Dardanelles. To have pursued them into Ottoman waters would, it was
pleaded in justification, have constituted a violation of Turkish
neutrality. Undoubtedly it would, but the infringement would not have
been more serious than many flagrant breaches of neutrality which the
Sublime Porte had committed a short time before and was known to be
about to perpetrate again.[73] But a scrupulous regard for the rights
of neutrals has been, and still is, the groundstone of the Allies'
policy, irrespective of its effects on the outcome of the war. The
rules of the game, it is contended, must be observed by us, however
much they may be disregarded by the enemy. This considerateness and
scrupulosity may be chivalrous, but they form an irksome drag on a
nation at war with Teutons. The two ships were at once transferred by
Germany to the Turks.[74] Some two months later, deeming their war
preparations completed, the latter suddenly bombarded the open Russian
town of Theodosia in the Black Sea, and sank several sma