From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915:
UNLESS we beat the Germans they will bleed us to death, and grind their heels upon our faces. Those who in their hearts nourish a secret feeling that if the worst comes to the worst we can always break off the war, and acknowledge ourselves conquered, but not utterly destroyed, and still able to hold our own as an independent nation, even if on a lower plane, are utterly mistaken. The Germans have come too near defeat ever to risk our continued existence as a free nation. If they win, they will ruin us completely. But the Germans will win if we have not enough shell and not enough of the other necessaries of war. Shell, remember, though the need of the hour, is by no means our only need.
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