upon
the Shi-kou arsenal, one would not be commanding the Grand Fleet
and the other its battle-cruiser squadron.

Before the war, I am told, when Admiralty Lords and others who had
the decision to make were discussing who should command in case
of war, opinion ran something like this: "Jellicoe! He has the brains."
"Jellicoe! He has the health to endure the strain, with years enough
and not too many." "Jellicoe! He has the confidence of the service."
The choice literally made itself. When anyone is undertaking the
gravest responsibility which has been an Englishman's for a hundred
years, this kind of a recommendation helps. He had the guns; he had
supreme command; he must deliver victory--such was England's
message to him.

When I mentioned in a dispatch that all that differentiated him from
the officers around him was the broader band of gold lace on his arm,
an English naval critic wanted to know if I expected to find him in cloth
of gold. No; nor in full dress with all his medals on, as I saw him
appear on the screen at a theatre in London.

Any general of high command must be surrounded by more pomp
than an admiral in time of action. A headquarters cannot have the
simplicity of the quarter-deck. The force which the general commands
is not in sight; the admiral's is. You saw the commander and you saw
what it was that he commanded. Within the sweep of vision from the
quarter-deck was the terrific power which the man with the broad gold
band on his arm directed. At a signal from him it would move or it
would stand still. That command of Joshua's if given by Sir John one
thought might have been obeyed.

One hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred twelve-inch
guns and larger, which could carry two hundred tons of metal in a
single broadside for a distance of eighteen thousand yards! But do
not forget the little guns, bristling under the big guns like needles from
a cushion, which would keep off the torpedo assassins; or the light
cruisers, or the colliers, or the destroyers, or the 2,300 trawlers and
mine-layers, and what not, all under his direction. He had
submarines, too, double the number of the German. But with all the
German men-of-war in harbour, they had no targets. Where were
they? You did not ask questions which would not be answered. The
whole British fleet was waiting for the Germans to show their heads,
while cruisers were abroad scouting in the North Sea.

At the outset of the war the Germa