"We are told that the German time-table has been upset. Unquestionably it has. But is the time-table identical with the programme for which it was drawn up? If it is, then the march on Paris has been definitely abandoned. Now is this conclusion borne out by what we behold? What, then, is the meaning of the plan to capture Belfort and Calais? What is the object of the vast reinforcements now on their way from the east to Von Kluck's army? Personally, I have not a doubt that Paris is the objective, or that the Germans are still striving to carry out their programme in its entirety, which is the extension of their empire over Europe and Asia Minor. The immediate object of the Allies is to foil this design, and only after we have accomplished that can we think of assuming the offensive and crushing Prussian militarism. We have not compassed that end; the battlefields are still in the Allies' countries, and the initiative rests with the enemy. Now to whatever causes we may attribute this undesirable state of things--and it certainly cannot be ascribed to lack of energy on the part of the British Government or our military authorities--it is right that those who are acting for the nation should ask themselves whether those causes are still operative. If they are--and on this score there is hardly room for doubt--it behoves the Allies, and the British people in particular, to rise to a just sense of the _unparalleled sacrifices_ they must be prepared to make during the ordeal which they are about to undergo."