When the Kaiser’s Canal Armada finally makes up its mind, as I believe that German public opinion will some day compel it to, to forsake the snug harbors of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven and the screen of Heligoland for the high sea, it will find that Jellicoe has up his iron sleeve a welcome, as to the issue of which no one in these islands is capable of cherishing the remotest doubt. History is barren of an instance of a Power defeated in war, who retained command of the sea. Were there no other considerations which spell the eventual, though probably not the early, frustration of Germany’s ambition to master Europe and, as William II once sighed, to snatch the trident from Britannia’s grasp, the vise-like grip of naval power which Jellicoe has wrested alone denotes that Armageddon can have but one ending, however long it be deferred. In this cursory review of the men at Britain’s helm, the Sovereign is deliberately put at the end instead of the beginning. I mean to cast no impious slur upon George V in thus classifying his relative importance in the scheme of British war life, yet to rank him at the front of the captains of the State would be hyperbole as unpardonable in a chronicler as gratuitous defamation would be. To discuss the figure cut by England’s King during the past year is a task which a foreigner approaches with diffidence. I should not dream of taking such liberties with their Britannic Majesties, for example, as my gifted friend and colleague, Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb, who recently diagnosed the Royal situation in England thus: "I have seen the King and Queen, and I know now why they call him George the Fifth; Mary’s the other four-fifths." Whether this subtle tribute to the undoubtedly potent influence of the gracious Queen explains it or not, the indisputable fact remains that the part played by King George in the day of supreme British national trial has been a keen disappointment to a great many of his subjects. It is not a topic which they discuss at all in public, nor one upon which it is easy to extract their views even in private. But when an inquiring alien even of unmistakably sympathetic sentiment accomplishes the miracle of inducing a Briton to pour out his heart, he will secure evidence corroborative of an impression the foreigner has had from the start, if he has lived in England since August, 1914--that the monarchy, as such, has not given a wholly satisfactory account of itself. Men who are so utterly un-English as to be "quite" frank even suggest that King George’s insistence not only upon enacting the "constitutional monarch," but _overplaying_ that rôle, has not inconsiderably undermined the solidity of the Royal principle in numerous British hearts. They will tell you, if in communicative mood, that George has failed to rise to the majestic opportunities of the moment. They contrast his incorrigibly "constitutional" behavior with what they feel assured is the red-blooded lead King Edward would have given.