JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

PREFACE

The original intention, with which the leading articles of the present
collection were undertaken, was to elicit some of the lessons
derivable from the war between the United States and Spain; but in the
process of conception and of treatment there was imparted to them the
further purpose of presenting, in a form as little technical and as
much popular as is consistent with seriousness of treatment, some of
the elementary conceptions of warfare in general and of naval warfare
in particular. The importance of popular understanding in such matters
is twofold. It promotes interest and induces intelligent pressure upon
the representatives of the people, to provide during peace the
organization of force demanded by the conditions of the nation; and it
also tends to avert the unintelligent pressure which, when war exists,
is apt to assume the form of unreasoning and unreasonable panic. As a
British admiral said two hundred years ago, "It is better to be
alarmed now, as I am, than next summer when the French fleet may be in
the Channel." Indifference in times of quiet leads directly to
perturbation in emergency; for when emergency comes, indifference is
found to have resulted in ignorance, and fear is never so overpowering
as when, through want of comprehension, there is no check upon the
luxuriance of the imagination.

It is, of course, vain to expect that the great majority of men should
attain even an elementary knowledge of what constitutes the strength
or weakness of a military situation; but it does not seem extravagant
to hope that the individuals, who will interest themselves thus far,
may be numerous enough, and so distributed throughout a country, as to
constitute rallying points for the establishment of a sound public
opinion, and thus, in critical moments, to liberate the responsible
authorities from demands which, however unreasonable, no
representative government can wholly withstand.

The articles do not in any sense constitute a series. Written for
various occasions, at various times, there is in them no sequence of
treatment, or even of conception. Except the last, however, they all
have had a common origin in the war with Spain. This may seem somewhat
questionable as regards the one on the Peace Conference; but, without
assuming to divine all the motives which led to the call for that
assembly, the writer is persuaded that between it and the war t