=KING GEORGE V CLASS.= KING GEORGE V, CENTURION, AUDACIOUS, AJAX. Displacement: 23,000 tons. Speed: 22 knots; Guns: 10 13·5in., 16 4in.; Torpedo tubes: 5. [Illustration] Astern fire: Broadside: Ahead fire: 4 13·5in. 10 13·5in. 4 13·5in. It was in these circumstances that the war opened. Every incident tended to remind the people of the British Isles and the subjects of the King who live in the far-flung Dominions and those who reside in the scattered Crown Colonies and Dependencies of the essential truth contained in the phrases which had come so trippingly to the lips in days of peace. Men recognised that the statement of our dependence upon the sea as set forth in the Articles of War was a declaration of policy which we had done well not to ignore: “It is upon the Navy that, under the good Providence of God, the wealth, prosperity and peace of these islands and of the Empire do mainly depend.” How true these words rang when, in defence of our honour, we had to take up the gage thrown down by the Power which claimed supremacy as a military Power and aspired to primacy as a naval Power. Those who turned to Mr. Arnold White’s admirable monograph on “The Navy and Its Story,” must admit that this writer, in picturesque phrase, had set forth fundamental facts: “Since the first mariner risked his life in a canoe and travelled coastwise for his pleasure or his business, Britain has acquired half the seaborne traffic of the world. She relies on her Navy to fill the grocer’s shop, to bring flour and corn to our great cities and to keep any possible enemy at a distance. So successfully has the British Navy done its work that many generations of Englishmen have grown up without hearing the sound of a gun fired in anger. Every other nation in Europe has heard the tramp of foreign soldiery in the lifetime of men still living and felt the pain and shame of invasion. “Five times in the history of England the British Navy has stood between the would-be master of Europe and the attainment of his ambition. Charlemagne, Charles V., Philip II. of Spain, Louis XIV. of France, and Napoleon--all aspired to universal dominion. Each of these Sovereigns in turn was checked in his soaring plans by British sea power.” When the British peoples awoke to the fact that they owed it to themselves and their past to join in humbling another tyrant, they gained confidence in the task which confronted them from the glorious record of the past achievements of those who, relying upon command of the sea, had crushed in the dust the mightiest rulers that had ever tried to impose their yoke on humanity. [Illustration] _H.M.S. Orion._ _Photo: Sport & General._ =ORION CLASS.= ORION, CONQUEROR, MONARCH, THUNDERER. Displacement: 22,500 tons. Speed: 22 knots; Guns: 10 13·5in., 16 4in.; Torpedo tubes: 3. [Illustration] Astern fire: Broadside: Ahead fire: 4 13·5in. 10 13·5in. 4 13·5in.