New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-03

To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: ! am past tho meridian Of life.
have had experience Of many countries and
many newspapers. | was in Paris for some
months during the Bocr war, when were
written the strongest articles against Eng
land that have ever appeared in France.
was in Germany several times during inter
national political frictons, and since the
present war started have read many Of the
bittcrest attacks on England that Teutonic
malice could inspire But in all my expert
oncc ! have never seen gathered together
i'm ono article so many misstatements Of
facts, so many misrcadngs OF action, IL
fact, SO many direct or indirect untruths, as
appear iu your article Of this morning under
tho heading OF British Failure" I chal-
lcngc you 10 point 10 ono single statement
in the article which is the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the TRUTH and defy
you to produce proof Of any one of your as
scrtions False. false. false. from beginning
to end, that is tho character of the article.
You distort the truth 10 turn point; gross
~ cxaggeratc 20 lend - sham force to a bad
argument; damn with faint praise England
most important achievements for the purpose
OF giving color to lengthy condemnation
Of her mistakes cover her greatest virtues
with cloak Of faults. and malign her great
est men with broad accusations without a
shadow of proof being adduced in support
thereof. Your article is long, and so re-
quires much space to answer, but will deal
to be as brief as possible.
I. The article is based on the surrender
Of Kut-el-Amara, and after minimizing this
affair from military point of view you pro-
coed to imply that it has an enormous sig
nihcance as against England, and make the
following astounding assertions:
ain tho Near East, in the Far East, this
surrender before Bagdad is a greater fact
than the Russian victory at Erzerum or the
French at Veriuu. What the French have
purchased on the Meuse, the Russians along
the upper Euphrates. for prestige and infu-
ence for the anti-Teutonic alliance, has been
wasted by the British in Mesopotamia and
Ireland
Where is your proof or authority for this
For deny it absolutely and not only so, but
declare most positively that from all expert
cnce the adventures into Gallipol and Meso-
potama and in fact all such adventures, vic
torioUs or otherwise, have only the effect of
enhancing British prestige throughout the
world For national thought runs along
broader grooves than are evidently availa-
bic TO the writer of your article You re-
gard these retrements or surrenders as de-
feats, and tell us that England is always too
late, but you do not tell us that it is lust
this kind of adventure that has given Eng
land her great empire, and which she alone
of all countries is in the habit of making;
nor do you point out that of the thousand
Of such adventures she has had in her wars
she has been successful in nine hundred Of
them. Too late! Look over the map of the
world and see how much is colored with tho
British pink Does it look as though Eng
land Is in the habit of being too late? Is
not this very war mostly caused by tho size
of her possessions? And in her great ad-
ventures in Africa, India. Australia. Canada.
let alone the thousand islands and the poles.
was she ever too late? Never. but often too
soon. for she dares sometimes without suai-
cienty counting the cost, as with Khar-
tum, Gallipoli and Kut-el-Amara: and her
soldiers and explorers die, and die bravely.
knowing well that their country will ad-
venture and adventure again till success re-
suits, as with Khartum and a hundred other
places. And these adventures are in accord
with British practice from time immemorial.
They are the very breath of her spirit tine
source OF all her glory. the foundation of all
her expansion, and because they are made
too soon sometimes, because the magma
ton of her people occasionally runs ahead OF
their power Of execution, and q daring stroke
is attempted without specialized ortanization,