head of the
War Office; Lord French's immortal first army had just got the word
_GO!_ and a German mine-layer was already at the work which cost her
own life but sank the cruiser _Amphion_.

Years before the first shot was fired the French and British Navies had
prepared their plans for blockading the Austrians in the Adriatic and
the Germans in the North Sea. The French were more than a match for
the Austrians, the British more still for the Germans. But the
Austrians had their whole navy together, while the Germans also had at
least nine-tenths of their own. So the French and British, in their
efforts to keep the seaways open for friends and closed to enemies, had
to reckon with the chances of battle as well as with those of blockade.
The Austrians never gave much trouble, except, like the Germans, with
their submarines; and after the Italians had joined us (May 1915) the
Austrian Navy was hopelessly outclassed.

But the Germans were different. By immense hard work they had passed
every navy in the world except the British; and they were getting
dangerously close even to that. Their Navy did not want war so soon;
and no Germans wanted the sort of war they got. Their Navy wanted to
build and build for another ten or twenty years, hoping that our
Pacifist traitors (who were ready for peace at any price, honour and
liberty of course included) would play the German game by letting the
German Navy outbuild the British. Then _Der Tag_ (the day) would come
in the way the Germans hoped when they drank to it with shouts of _Hoch
der Kaiser!_ (which really meant, _The Kaiser on top, the British
underneath!_ though that is not the translation). To get this kind of
_Tag_ the Germans needed to strike down their victims one by one in
three quite separate wars: first, France and Belgium, Russia and the
Southern Slavs; a thing they could have done with Austria, Bulgaria,
and Turkey on their side and the rest of Europe neutral. Then, having
made sure of their immensely strengthened new position in the world,
_Der Tag_ would come against the British Empire. Last of all, they
would work their will in South America, being by that time far too
strong for the United States. A nightmare plan, indeed! But, with
good luck and good management, and taking us one by one, and always
having our vile Pacifists to help them, this truly devilish plot might
well have been worked out in three successive generations during the
course of th