We have to thank an ingenious correspondent for drawing up the following
"credibility index" for the guidance of perplexed newspaper readers:
London, Paris, or Petrograd (official) 100
" " " (semi-official) 50
Berlin (official) 25
It is believed in military circles here that-- 24
A correspondent that has just returned from the
firing-line tells me that-- 18
Our correspondent at Rome announces that-- 11
Berlin (unofficial) 10
I learn from a neutral merchant that-- 7
A story is current in Venice to the effect that-- 5
It is rumoured that-- 4
I have heard to-day from a reliable source that-- 3
I learn on unassailable authority that-- 2
It is rumoured in Rotterdam that-- 1
Wolff's Bureau states that-- 0
_January, 1915_.
General von Kluck "never got round on the right." Calais is Calais still,
and the Kaiser, if he still wishes to give it a new name, may call it the
"Never, Never Land." "General Janvier" is doing his worst, but our men are
sticking it out through slush and slime. As for the Christmas truce and
fraternisation, the British officer who ended a situation that was proving
impossible by presenting a dingy Saxon with a copy of _Punch_ in
exchange for a packet of cigarettes, acted with a wise candour:
For there he found, our dingy friend,
Amid the trench's sobering slosh,
What must have left him, by the end,
A wiser, if a sadder, Boche,
Seeing himself, with chastened mien,
In that pellucid well of Truth serene.
There can be no "fraternising" with Fritz until he realises that he has
been fooled by his War Lords; and his awakening is a long way off. Lord
Kitchener has been charged with being "very economical in his information"
vouchsafed to the Lords, but it is well to be rid of illusions. This has
not been a month of great events. General Joffre is content with this
ceaseless "nibbling." The Kaiser, nourished by the flattery of his tame
professors, encourages the war on non-combatants.
The Turks are beginning to show a gift for euphemism in disguising their
reverses in the Caucasus, which shows that they have nothing to learn from
their masters; Austria, badly mauled by the Serbians, addresses awful
threats to Roumania; and the United States has issued a warning Note on
neutral trading. But the American Eagle is not the Eagle that we are up
against.
[Illustration: THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED