903, despite the
fears of his Ministers, who did all they could to make him change his
mind, and then, when this failed, to go there as a private person.
They were afraid that memories of Fashoda and of all the anti-British
feeling stirred up by Germans in Europe and America over the Boer War
(1899-1902) would make the French unfriendly. But he went to pay his
respects to France on his accession to the British Throne, showed how
perfectly he understood the French people, said and did exactly the
right thing in the right way; and, before either friends or foes knew
what was happening, had so won the heart of France that French and
British, seeing what friends they might be, began that _Entente
Cordiale_ (good understanding of each other) which our glorious
Alliance in the Great War ought to make us keep forever. Paris named
one of her squares in his honour, _Place Edouard Sept_; and there the
wise king's statue stands to remind the world of what he did to save it
from the German fury.

Next year Lord Fisher went to London as First Sea Lord (1904-10) to get
the Navy ready for the coming war. He struck off the list of fighting
ships every single one that would not be fit for battle in the near
future. He put "nucleus crews" on board all ships fit for service that
were not in sea-going squadrons for the time being; so that when the
Reserves were called out for the war they would find these nucleus
crews ready to show them all the latest things aboard. He started a
new class of battleships by launching (1906) the world-famous
_Dreadnought_. This kind of ship was so much better than all others
that all foreign navies, both friends and foes, have copied it ever
since, trying to keep up with each new British improvement as it
appeared.

But the greatest thing of all was Fisher's new plan for bringing the
mighty British fleets closer together and so "handier" for battles with
the Germans. The old plan of posting British squadrons all over the
world takes us back to the Conquest of Canada; for it was the work of
St. Vincent, to whom Wolfe handed his will the night before the Battle
of the Plains (1759). St. Vincent's plan of 1803 was so good that it
worked well, with a few changes, down to Fisher's anti-German plan of
1904, about which time the French and British Navies began talking over
the best ways of acting together when the Germans made their spring.
In 1905--the centenary of Trafalgar--a British fleet visited Fra