From ‘The Struggle in the East‘, The Spectator, 24 July 1915:
Even if the Germans take Warsaw and practically the whole of the Polish salient, and are not too badly punished by the Russian armies during the operation, they will have to begin the painful and dangerous task of invading Russia. No doubt in theory this is not a necessity. The Germans could go into winter quarters in Poland and stave off Russian attacks. That, however, we venture to say—though the proof would take too long to give on the present occasion—will turn out an impossible task. Germany will have to go forward into Russia as long as the Russian armies are in being. It will be seen that we always come back to this point. What matters is to keep the Russian armies in being. As long as they are in being the Germans cannot disengage themselves from their enemy. It is only through their destruction that the Germans can accomplish anything worth accomplishing. Lot us look at the problem in the light of past history. We may point out that Charles XII, though he so often beat the Russians, never destroyed their armies; the same thing can be said with even greater emphasis of Napoleon; in the Crimea we and the French, though we had a local success, failed in the same way; and the Japanese, in spite of their series of overwhelming victories in the field, never destroyed the Russian Army. At the end of the Manchurian campaign its continued existence obliged the victorious Japanese to conclude a peace in which the net losses of the victors and the vanquished wore pretty well equalized. It is of course conceivable that the Kaiser may succeed where Charles XII, Napoleon, the Allies, and the Japanese failed—that he will destroy the Russian armies. If he does, he will undoubtedly be the arbiter of Europe. If our readers want our opinion on the matter, we will give it—He will not succeed.
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