The saying that “the onlooker sees most of the game” is as true of the broader aspects of war as of anything else, and in the unfettered common sense of the intelligent citizen, and its reaction on those entrusted with the military weapons, lies the quickest chance of deliverance from this dogma――for military authority holds with Bishop Warburton that “orthodoxy is my doxy――heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.” Soldiers who refuse to bow in adoration of Napoleon and Clausewitz, his prophet, are condemned as heretics, and the repression of the “Protestants” has been made possible by the apathy of the public towards military questions. Men of the Anglo-Saxon race are not willing to hand over their religious or political conscience into the keeping of “authority,” yet by their lack of interest in military questions they do in fact relinquish any check on a policy which affects the security of their lives and livelihoods to an even greater extent. For, when war bursts upon the nation, it is the ordinary citizens who pay the toll either with their lives or from their pockets. Only by taking an active interest in the broad aspects of national defence, and so regaining control of their military conscience, can they avoid being driven like sheep to the shearer and slaughterhouse, as in the last war. PERMANENT NATIONAL OBJECTS If the citizens of a nation were asked what should be the general aim of the national policy, they would reply, in tenor if not in exact words, that it should be such as to guarantee them “an honourable, prosperous, and secure existence.” No normal citizen of a democracy would willingly imperil this by a resort to war. Only when he considers, or it is suggested to him convincingly, that his honour, prosperity, or security are endangered by the policy of another nation, will he consent to the grave step of making war. THE NATIONAL OBJECTIVE IN WAR When, however, the fateful decision for war has been taken, what does common sense tell us should be the national objective? To ensure a resumption and progressive continuance of what may be termed the peace-time policy, with the shortest and least costly interruption of the normal life of the country. What stands in the way of this? The determination of the hostile nation to enforce its contrary policy in defiance of our own aims and desires. To gain our aim or objective we have to change this adverse will into a compliance with our own policy, and the sooner and more cheaply in lives and money we can do this, the better chance is there of a continuance of national prosperity in the widest sense. The aim of a nation in war is, therefore, to subdue the enemy’s will to resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself.