All of those who read me know that the blows which we have struck in France and Flanders, ever since the crowning victory of the Marne—that still unexplained miracle which saved western civilisation from ruin—are the direct consequence of the success in the North Sea of our mobilised fleets in August, 1914. But few know—or if they do, have pushed the knowledge testily from their minds—of a failure in the Mediterranean, also in August of 1914, a failure which at the time may have seemed of little account, yet out of which grew in inevitable melancholy sequence, a tragical train of troubles. Though we may choose to forget, Fate has a memory most damnably long. Nothing would be more unfair than to lay at the door of the Navy the blame for all the consequences of a failure which, it has been officially held, the officers on the spot did their utmost to avert. Men are only human after all, and the sea is a very big place. We need not censure anyone. Still, we should be most foolish and blind to the lessons of war if we did not now and then turn aside from the smug contemplation of our strategical and tactical victories, and seek in a humble spirit to gather instruction from a grievous pondering over the consequences of our defeats. And of this particular defeat of which I write the results have been gloomy beyond description—the sword in the balance which threw Turkey and Bulgaria into alliance with our enemies, and all the blood and the tears with which the soil of the Near East has been soaked.