once the more effective
and the more economical to use. In continental warfare, as we have seen,
such cases can hardly occur, but they tend to declare themselves strongly
when the maritime factor is introduced to any serious extent.

The tendency of British warfare to take the lower or limited form has
always been as clearly marked as is the opposite tendency on the Continent.
To attribute such a tendency, as is sometimes the fashion, to an inherent
lack of warlike spirit is sufficiently contradicted by the results it has
achieved. There is no reason indeed to put it down to anything but a
sagacious instinct for the kind of war that best accords with the
conditions of our existence. So strong has this instinct been that it has
led us usually to apply the lower form not only where the object of the war
was a well-defined territorial one, but to cases in which its correctness
was less obvious. As has been explained in the last chapter, we have
applied it, and applied it on the whole with success, when we have been
acting in concert with continental allies for an unlimited object--where,
that is, the common object has been the overthrow of the common enemy.

The choice between the two forms really depends upon the circumstances of
each case. We have to consider whether the political object is in fact
limited, whether if unlimited in the abstract it can be reduced to a
concrete object that is limited, and finally whether the strategical
conditions are such as lend themselves to the successful application of the
limited form.

What we require now is to determine those conditions with greater
exactness, and this will be best done by changing our method to the
concrete and taking a leading case.

The one which presents them in their clearest and simplest form is without
doubt the recent war between Russia and Japan. Here we have a particularly
striking example of a small Power having forced her will upon a much
greater Power without "overthrowing" her--that is, without having crushed
her power of resistance. That was entirely beyond the strength of Japan. So
manifest was the fact that everywhere upon the Continent, where the
overthrow of your enemy was regarded as the only admissible form of war,
the action of the Japanese in resorting to hostilities was regarded as
madness. Only in England, with her tradition and instinct for what an
island Power may achieve by the lower means, was Japan considered to have
any reasonable