We have no idea, at the Foreign Office, of coping with the German propaganda in America. Our Naval Attaché in the United States tells me that the German Emperor is unceasing in his efforts to win over the American Official authorities, and that the German Embassy at Washington is far and away in the ascendant with the American Government. I hope I shall not be considered presumptuous in saying all this. I humbly confess I am neither a diplomatist nor a politician. I thank God I am neither. The former are senile, and the latter are liars. But it all does seem such simple common sense to me that for our Army we require mobile troops as against sedentary garrisons, and that our military intervention in any very great Continental struggle is unwise, remembering what Napoleon said on that point with such emphasis and such sure conception of war, and that great combined Naval and Military expeditions should be our rôle. In the splendid words of Sir Edward Grey: “The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy.” The foundation of our policy is that the communications of the Empire must be kept open by a predominant Fleet, and _ipso facto_ such a Fleet will suffice to allay the fears of the “old women of both sexes” in regard to the invasion of England or the invasion of her Colonies. NELSON’S COPENHAGEN In May, 1907, England had seven “Dreadnoughts” ready for battle, and Germany had not one. And England had flotillas of submarines peculiarly adapted to the shallower German waters when Germany had none. Even in 1908 Germany only had four submarines. At that time, in the above letter I wrote to King Edward, I approached His Majesty, and quoted certain apposite sayings of Mr. Pitt about dealing with the probable enemy before he got too strong. It is admitted that it was not quite a gentlemanly sort of thing for Nelson to go and destroy the Danish Fleet at Copenhagen without notice, but “la raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure.”