But a war cannot possibly be well managed by anyone who is not a master of the art. Now and then there has been success by an amateur--a person who, without being a soldier by profession, has made himself one; such a person, for example, as Cromwell. Apart from rare instances of that sort, the only plan for a Government which does not include among its members a soldier, professional or amateur, is to choose a soldier of one class or the other and to delegate authority to him. But this plan does not always succeed, because sometimes a Government composed of men who know nothing of war postpones calling in the competent man until too late. There have been in our time two instances of this plan, one successful and the other a failure. In 1882 Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet drifted against its will and to its painful surprise into the Egyptian war. The Cabinet when it saw that war had come gave Lord Wolseley a free hand and he was able to save them by the victory of Tel-el-Kebir. A year or two later, being anxious to avoid a Soudan war, they drifted slowly into it; but this time they were too late in giving Lord Wolseley full powers, and he was unable to save Gordon and Khartoum solely because he had not been called upon in time. The best analogy to the course then pursued is that of a sick person whose friends attempt to prescribe for him themselves until the disease takes a palpably virulent form, when they send for a doctor just in time to learn that the patient's life could have been saved by proper treatment a week earlier, but that now there is no hope. For war requires competent management in advance. There are many things which must be done, if they are to be done in time, before the beginning of hostilities, and the more distant the theatre of war the more necessary it may be to take measures beforehand.