But a further word must be added. If every admiral at every juncture is to regulate his action by nice calculation of policy and chance, is there not a risk that the balancing of pros and cons may be pushed so far as to confuse the main issue? It is not on these principles that, when it comes to fighting, brave men with an instinct for war do in fact act. It is almost true to say that the example of Hawke and Nelson, no less than those of the light cruiser and destroyer captains in the battle we are about to consider, prove that the best way of diminishing the risk of loss is to take the risk as boldly and as often as you get the chance. Something seems to be due to fighting for fighting’s sake. What was it that Nelson said about no captain could go far wrong who laid his ship alongside an enemy’s! or as Napoleon has it, “the glory and honour of arms should be the first consideration of a general who gives battle!” In summing up the situation on May 31, the elements appear to be as follows: The German Government was in double need of a stroke to restore the _moral_ of its people. A Russian revival was possible, the British army in France and Flanders was growing to formidable dimensions, the blow at Verdun had failed. The German Government, and particularly the Imperial Navy, had been humiliated by the surrender to America, so that everything pointed to a stroke at sea, if one could be planned that did not involve too great a risk. Admiral Scheer and his officers of the High Seas Fleet were full of eagerness to justify themselves to their force. They believed the British naval strategy to be such that it would be possible for them to inveigle the fast division of the British Fleet into an action with greatly superior numbers, when serious damage might be inflicted on them. They counted, and with confidence, on Sir David Beatty’s eagerness to fight, and they trusted to being able to defeat him before he could break off action or could be supported by forces with whom engagement would be hopeless. They relied upon their air scouts to save them from surprise, and had no intention of coming into contact with Sir John Jellicoe if it could possibly be avoided. At the same time, however, they recognized that the defensive tactics which smoke screens and the new torpedo made possible would not only prevent contact with superior numbers being disastrous, they believed here, too, either that the British would avoid the risk of torpedo disaster, or that the keenness of the British Fleet for action must expose them to very formidable losses by under-water attack, while their gun-fire could be rendered harmless by the obscuration of the target and the manœuvres the torpedo could force upon them. And in these conditions the evasion of an artillery fight at decisive range should present no difficulties. Finally, such risks as were involved were well worth the incalculable enhancement of German