What happened in the last days of July, 1914? During the period of strained relations, the War-Book was opened, and every official in every State Department concerned--eleven in all--had before him a precise statement of exactly what contribution he had to make in mobilising the State as an economic factor for war. Proclamations, Orders in Council, letters, and telegrams flowed forth throughout the British Isles, and to the uttermost parts of the Empire, in accordance with the pre-arranged plan which had been so assiduously elaborated. Hardly had the Navy been mobilised, the Army Reserves called out to complete the regular Army, and the Territorials embodied, than the nation realised that, without confusion, it had itself been placed upon a war footing. The creation of the British War-Book must be acclaimed as a monument to the perspicacity of Mr. Asquith and the Ministers who assisted him on the Committee of Defence, and to the splendid labours of the Secretary of the Committee, Captain Maurice Hankey, C.B., and the small staff associated with him. This organisation, which owed so much to the “staff mind” of its former secretary, Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Ottley, imposed upon the nation a charge of only about £5,000 a year, which was returned increased by a thousandfold when the crisis came, and the United Kingdom, existing under the most artificial conditions owing to its dependence on the sea for food and raw materials, was prepared, for the first time in its history, to offer to its fleets and armies the wholehearted and organised support of the richest nation in the world. When the curtain fell upon the seas, the nation had the assurance that everything which foresight could suggest had been done to make secure our essential supremacy. The newspapers preserved a discreet silence as the Home Fleets took up their stations in the main strategical area. They were convinced, by irrefutable evidence, that adequate power had been concentrated in this theatre to enable the North Sea to be sealed, thus confining the main operations of the naval war to one of the smallest water areas in the world.