e twentieth century.

As it was, we had trouble enough to beat them; for they fought well by
sea and land and air, though more like devils than like men. The
charge of cowardice against our enemies, especially the Turks and
Germans, is nonsense. Besides, it takes away our own men's glory if
they had nothing more than cowards to put down. Of course the enemy
had cowards, as other peoples have; but they had plenty of brave men
too; and what, that unsurpassable hero of the air, McCudden, said of
one brave German will do for many more. "I shall never forget my
admiration for that German pilot who, single-handed, fought seven of us
for ten minutes, and also put some bullets through all our machines.
His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent."

The Germans had not only the advantage of being able to mass nearly all
their navy together but of training it all together on the same North
Sea practice ground, and of building battle squadrons on purpose for
one kind of fight close at home: a single tiger-spring and that was
all. The British, on the other hand, had to build a good many ships
"fit to go foreign" thousands of miles away, and so had to give up much
space to the men's quarters and to fuel; while the Germans could save
half this space for increased power in armour, engines, guns, and other
things suited to one short cruise and tiger-spring near home. Not the
least of the many British triumphs was winning against an enemy who was
so brave, so skilful, so strong in many ways, and so very devilish in
all.

Now that we know what we are about, let us clear the decks for action
and go full steam ahead right through the fight at sea.

The British Navy had to help the British Army into France and take care
that the Army's ever-growing forces there, as well as on a dozen
different fronts elsewhere, always had the sea-roads kept open to many
different bases over half the world. The Seven Seas are ten times
bigger than the whole of North and South America. Yet the Navy watched
or kept in touch with every part of all of them. So much for space.
Now for time. Time was needed to get Kitchener's vast new armies
ready. Millions sprang to arms. But it would have been sheer murder
to send them to the front without many months of very hard training.
So the enemy had to be kept at arm's length for a very long time--for
the whole war, indeed, because reinforcements and supplies were always
needed in vast and ever vast