The Crown Prince has not obtained much distinction in the present war, and if the object was to crown him with laurels of victory, the result has been disastrous. To lose as many as five hundred thousand men, when the question of man-power is becoming serious for the Central Empires, is a reckless policy which could only be justified, if justified at all, by a colossal success. As we know, in six months’ fighting the positions remained very much the same--attack and counter-attack, loss and gain, masses of Germans driven up to slaughter and the French still holding the much-coveted positions. Both east and west of the Meuse the story has been the same. Mr. Raemaekers’ picture remains as true to the facts as ever it was. “On Their Way to Verdun” is a history of enormous massacre and little triumph for the Germans, to whom Verdun appeared originally an easy prey. W. L. COURTNEY. [Illustration] _Bethmann-Hollweg’s Peace Song_ One felt interested in the “Campaign for Honorable Peace,” until it was learned that the propagandists designed to proceed on Herr Bethmann-Hollweg’s formula. But the map to which the German Chancellor referred has already altered since he offered it as a basis for negotiation, and before the German speakers have stumped the Fatherland it may happen that still deeper modifications will appear on the existent lines. The “honorable peace” at present in the minds of Prince Wedel and his committee bears a suspicious resemblance to a very respectable victory for Germany, and it is only the continued, carefully fostered ignorance of that country that can make the forthcoming campaign less ridiculous to the German man-in-the-street than it appears to ourselves. The Kaiser’s sham door is still stuffed with high explosives, and Herr Bethmann-Hollweg’s tears will help to water no olive branch. Consider the only possible conditions of peace that do not involve a treasonable attitude of mind in England and the Allies, and then observe Germany’s attitude to those conditions. We may reduce the vital points to three, with M. Gustave Hervé; and in taking his terms, be it remembered that we speak with the lips of a great man and a great pacifist. He recognizes the awful need to destroy the domination of the Central Powers and crush German militarism for the sake of his own ideals; and, that done, dreams of the only possible peace and sees it based on a triple foundation. The first and obvious need is that which the Union of Democratic Control and those who think in its terms seem unable to perceive as the most vital: a defeated Germany. Germany is the obstacle that militates against any sort of future safety for great or small States. It follows, therefore, that until we can impose our peace ideal upon her, no Allied peace worthy the name is possible; and since our terms must be profoundly distasteful to Germany and her first accomplice, it is vain to present them until her power to decline them has been destroyed.