Again, Napoleon praised our Blockades (Les Anglais bloquent très bien); but very justly of our Diplomacy he thought but ill. Yes, alas! What a Diplomacy it has been!!! If our Blockade had been permitted by the Diplomats to have been effective, it would have finished the War at once. Our Diplomats had Bulgaria in their hands and lost her. It was “Too Late” a year after to offer her the same terms as she had asked the year before. We “kow-towed” to the French when they rebuffed our request for the English Army to be on the Sea Flank and to advance along the Belgian Coast, supported by the British Fleet; and then there would have been no German Submarine War. At the very beginning of the War we deceived the German Ambassador in London and the German Nation by our vacillating Diplomacy. We wrecked the Russian Revolution and turned it into Bolshevism. I mention these matters to prove the effete, apathetic, indecisive, vacillating Conduct of the War--the War eventually being won by an effective Blockade. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE EARLY YEARS 1 CHAPTER II FURTHER MEMORIES OF KING EDWARD AND OTHERS 24 CHAPTER III THE BIBLE, AND OTHER REFLECTIONS 38 CHAPTER IV EPISODES 50 CHAPTER V DEMOCRACY 69 CHAPTER VI PUBLIC SPEECHES 79 CHAPTER VII THE ESSENTIALS OF SEA FIGHTING 88 CHAPTER VIII JONAH’S GOURD 97 CHAPTER IX NAVAL PROBLEMS 127 CHAPTER X NAVAL EDUCATION 156 CHAPTER XI SUBMARINES 173 CHAPTER XII NOTES ON OIL AND OIL ENGINES 189 CHAPTER XIII THE BIG GUN 204 CHAPTER XIV SOME PREDICTIONS 211 CHAPTER XV THE BALTIC PROJECT 217 CHAPTER XVI THE NAVY IN THE WAR 225 POSTSCRIPT 249 APPENDIX I LORD FISHER’S GREAT NAVAL REFORMS 251 APPENDIX II SYNOPSIS OF LORD FISHER’S CAREER 259 INDEX 271 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1882. CAPTAIN OF H.M.S. “INFLEXIBLE” _Frontispiece_