s to ensure victory; and, again following out the principles
of Clausewitz, victory can only be ensured by the creation in peace of
an organisation which will bring every available man, horse, and gun (or
ship and gun, if the war be on the sea) in the shortest possible time,
and with the utmost possible momentum, upon the decisive field of
action--which in turn leads to the final doctrine formulated by Von der
Goltz in excuse for the action of the late President Kruger in 1899:

"The Statesman who, knowing his instrument to be ready, and seeing War
inevitable, hesitates to strike first is guilty of a crime against his
country."

It is because this sequence of cause and effect is absolutely unknown to
our Members of Parliament, elected by popular representation, that
all our efforts to ensure a lasting peace by securing efficiency with
economy in our National Defences have been rendered nugatory.

This estimate of the influence of Clausewitz's sentiments on
contemporary thought in Continental Europe may appear exaggerated to
those who have not familiarised themselves with M. Gustav de Bon's
exposition of the laws governing the formation and conduct of crowds I
do not wish for one minute to be understood as asserting that Clausewitz
has been conscientiously studied and understood in any Army, not even
in the Prussian, but his work has been the ultimate foundation on which
every drill regulation in Europe, except our own, has been reared. It is
this ceaseless repetition of his fundamental ideas to which one-half of
the male population of every Continental Nation has been subjected
for two to three years of their lives, which has tuned their minds to
vibrate in harmony with his precepts, and those who know and appreciate
this fact at its true value have only to strike the necessary chords
in order to evoke a response sufficient to overpower any other ethical
conception which those who have not organised their forces beforehand
can appeal to.

The recent set-back experienced by the Socialists in Germany is an
illustration of my position. The Socialist leaders of that country
are far behind the responsible Governors in their knowledge of the
management of crowds. The latter had long before (in 1893, in fact)
made their arrangements to prevent the spread of Socialistic propaganda
beyond certain useful limits. As long as the Socialists only threatened
capital they were not seriously interfered with, for the Government
knew