(B) _The surprise by superior preparation_, as I term it, for want of a better name, is a danger to which we are peculiarly liable. As Lord Salisbury said, "The British constitution is a bad fighting machine," and it is made an infinitely worse fighting machine by the lack of interest which our politicians appear to take in all that appertains to war. Hence they are always liable to oppose, as excessive, preparations which are in reality the minimum consistent with national safety. Consequently our preparations for war, controlled as they are by those who have no special knowledge of war, are always apt to be insufficient, as were those of France in 1870. In former days this did not perhaps so very much matter, although it resulted in the unnecessary loss of hundreds of thousands of British lives and hundreds of millions of British treasure. But still we were able, at this somewhat excessive price, to "muddle through," owing to the heroic efforts of our soldiers and sailors to make bricks without straw and retrieve the mistakes of our policy. For our opponents then conducted war in such a slow way as to give us time to repair _after_ the outbreak of war our lack of preparation _before_ it. But opposed to a modern nation-in-arms, guided by statesmen and led by generals brought up in the school of Napoleon, Clausewitz, and Moltke--all will be different. In such a war the national forces brought into play are so immense that it is only possible to do so efficaciously if everything has been most carefully prepared and organized beforehand. It is not _possible_ to improvise such organization of national force _after_ the war has begun, for there cannot be sufficient time. If our rival makes adequate preparation before the war to bring to bear in that war the _whole_ of its national force, material, moral, and physical, while we only prepare to bring to bear a _small portion_ thereof, then there will be no time afterwards for us to repair our negligence. The war will be conducted with the utmost energy, and the aim will be to utilize to the utmost the superiority obtained by superior preparation, so as to make the decision as rapid as possible before we have time to recover from the effects of our surprise. That is the danger we have to fear, and to keep ever in mind. CHAPTER VIII WAR AS POLICY "War," says Clausewitz, "is only a continuation of State policy by other means." The first question that at once arises in the mind is what is meant by Policy. We may safely lay down that State policy is the defence and furtherance of the interests of the nation as a whole amidst the play of the conflicting tendencies towards rest and towards acquisition, and that its instruments are the pen and the sword. There can, of course, be any degree of consistency or fickleness, of strength or weakness, of success or failure, in the policy of a State.