Reversing the usual practice of treating the warships as incidental to the naval battles, I have preferred to treat the naval battles as incidental to the warships. For that reason I have attempted no word pictures of the onset of contending fleets, no more or less imaginary accounts of famous engagements, no descriptions of weird manœuvres and impossible strategy. Even under the restrictions I have been compelled to observe, the abundance of material to be dealt with is so vast that I feel I have done no more than skim the surface, as it were, and have by no means collected all the cream. The task of deciding what to insert and what to omit has been no light one. Much that my readers and critics may think ought to have been included has, perforce, had to be left out, and the necessity of keeping the book within the limits of its present dimensions must be my excuse for the sins of omission of which I shall no doubt be found guilty. So uneven, or erratic, has been the progress of warship construction, that in some of the world’s harbours, riding the waters almost side by side, one may see dug-outs and “Dreadnoughts,” sampans and submarines, canoes and cruisers, barges and battleships, the vessels of peace--though in times past they were not always vessels of peace--resting securely under the protection of the grim and terrible modern warships. Every care has been taken to obtain accuracy, but I do not guarantee the absolute correctness of every detail given, for the simple reason that the authorities consulted are not themselves always in agreement, and this applies equally to the warships of the past as to those of the present time.