In this Combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring, _Apollyon_ made all the time of the fight; he spake like a Dragon.... _The Pilgrim's Progress._ {3} CHAPTER I PEACE AND WAR It is a considerable number of years since the most distinguished Tory statesman of his time impressed upon his fellow-countrymen as a maxim of policy, that _Peace is the greatest of British interests_. There was an unexpectedness about Lord Salisbury's words, coming as they did from the leader of a party which had hitherto lain under suspicion of jingoism, which gave the phrase almost the colour of an epigram. The truth of the saying, however, gradually became manifest to all men; and thereupon a new danger arose out of this very fact. As a nation we are in some ways a great deal too modest; or it may be, looking at the matter from a critical standpoint, too self-centred. We have always been inclined to assume in our calculations that we ourselves are the only possible disturbers of the peace, and that if we do not seek war, or provoke it, no other Power will dream of forcing war upon us. This unfortunately has rarely been the case; and those persons who, in recent times, have refused most scornfully to consider the lessons of past history, have now at last learned from a sterner schoolmaster the falseness of their favourite doctrine. The United Kingdom needed and desired peace, so {4} that it might proceed undistracted, and with firm purpose, to set its house in order. The Dominions needed peace, so that they might have time to people their fertile but empty lands, to strike deep roots and become secure. To the Indian Empire and the Dependencies peace was essential, if a system of government, which aimed, not unsuccessfully, at giving justice and fostering well-being, was to maintain its power and prestige unshaken. The whole British race had nothing material to gain by war, but much to lose, much at any rate which would be put in jeopardy by war. In spite of all these weighty considerations which no man of sense and knowledge will venture to dispute, we should have been wiser had we taken into account the fact, that they did not apply to other nations, that in the main they affected ourselves alone, and that our case was no less singular than, in one sense at all events, it was fortunate. We did not covet territory or new subjects. Still less were we likely to engage in campaigns out of a thirst for glory. In the latter particular at least we were on a par with the rest of the world. The cloud of anxiety which for ten or more years has brooded over the great conscript nations, growing steadily darker, contained many dangers, but among these we cannot reckon such antiquated motives as trivial bravado, light-hearted knight-errantry, or the vain pursuit of military renown.