There is only one answer to all this "Pacifistic"
stuff-and-nonsense--if you will not fight on the side of right, then
you help those who fight on the side of wrong; and if you see your
enemy preparing to attack you wrongfully, and you do not prepare to
defend yourself, then you are a fool as well as a knave.
All the great experts in statesmanship and war saw the clash coming;
and saw that it was sure to come, because the German war party could
force it on the moment they were ready. Moreover, it was known that
the men of this war party would have forced it on at once if a peace
party had ever seemed likely to oust them. The real experts even
foresaw the chief ways in which the war would be fought. Lord Fisher
foresaw the danger of sea-going submarines long before submarines were
used for anything but the defence of harbours. More than this, ten
years before the war he named all the four senior men who led the first
British army into Flanders. In Lord Esher's diary for the 17th of
January, 1904, ten years before the war, is the following note about
Fisher's opinion on the best British generals: "French, because he
never failed in South Africa, and because he has the splendid gift of
choosing the right man (he means Douglas Haig).
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