It was an ambitious scheme, but not one that could be regarded as visionary. It did not take sufficient account of England’s sea-power; but undoubtedly if France and Russia had both been struck down, and England had been left standing alone, he would have been a very fearless Englishman who could have faced the future without apprehension. Even supposing that no immediate attack upon England had followed, her prospect of holding her own indefinitely against a Germany rapidly outgrowing her in population and wealth would not have been promising. The silent deposition of the naval power of France by that of Germany in the course of a few years before the War had been a striking lesson. But as a matter of fact a great attack upon England was undoubtedly contemplated. “Der Tag” was to have come, and come soon. Can any one feel sure that if England had stood by while France and Russia were overwhelmed she could afterwards have successfully resisted that attack? The Boer War had shown that at the beginning of the century a combination of the Continental powers against her was not improbable. Would it have been less probable fifteen or twenty years later, when the sea strength of those powers compared with her own had vastly increased, and when France and Russia had been incensed against her by her failure to help them in their time of need? And if all the navies of Europe had joined against her, could she have drawn for help on India and the Dominions beyond the seas? Would she not have found it hard enough to protect her own coasts? Happily for her she did not stand aside, and that issue was never put to the test. Unready for war as she was, and unwilling, she struck with sure instinct before it was too late. Even so, though England threw in her lot with Russia and France, the struggle was not an unequal one, and, as everyone knows, there were times when it seemed that the Allies might lose the war, or at all events fail to make more than a drawn fight of it. Their latent numbers and resources were greater, but the enemy enjoyed the immense advantage of having chosen his own time, when he was ready and they were not. He had also the advantage of united command and of the central position, whilst the Allies were widely separated. These advantages very nearly outbalanced latent numbers and resources. Eventually they proved insufficient to do so, but they nearly succeeded. Nothing prevented Germany winning but the fact that she had to put out all her armed power at once, and to fight England then, instead of reserving her Turkish strength for a separate duel with England later.