the British Government which fashioned the policy in question was to leave no stone unturned in the endeavor to find a way of keeping the peace between Germany and the Entente Powers.  Now success in that endeavor was not a certainty, and it was necessary to insure against the risk of failure.  The second branch of British policy related to the provision for defense rendered imperative by the element of uncertainty which was unavoidable.  The duty of the Government of this country was to make sure that, if their endeavor to preserve peace failed, the country should be prepared, in the best way of those that were practicable, to face the situation that might emerge.

Impetuous persons ask why, if there was even a chance of a great European war in which we might be involved, we did not appreciate the magnitude of what was at stake, and, laying everything else aside, concentrate our efforts on the immediate fashioning of such vast military forces as we possessed toward the end of the war?  The answer will be found in the fourth chapter.  We were aware of the risk, and we took what we thought the best means to meet it.  Had we tried to do what we are reproached for not having done, we must have become weaker before we could have become stronger.  For this statement I have given the military reasons.  In a time of peace, even if the country had assented to the attempt being made, it is certain that we could not have accomplished such a purpose without long delay.  It is probable that the result would have been failure, and it is almost certain that we should have provoked a “preventive war” on the part of Germany, a war not only with a very fair prospect, as things then stood, of a German success, but with something else that would have looked like the justification of a German effort to prevent that country from being encircled.  Such a war would, with equal likelihood, have been the outcome even of the proclamation at such a time of a military alliance between the Entente Powers.

Other critics, belonging to a wholly different school of political thought, ask why we moved at all, and why we did not adhere to the good old policy of holding aloof from interference in Continental affairs.  The answer is simple.  The days when “splendid isolation” was possible were gone.  Our sea power, even as an instrument of self-defense, was in danger of becoming inadequate in the absence of friendships which should insure that other navies would remain neutral if they did not actively co-operate with ours.  It was only through the medium of such friendships that ultimate naval preponderance could be secured.  The consciousness of that fact pervaded the Entente.  With those responsible for the conduct of tremendous affairs probability has to be the guide of life.  The question is always not what ought to happen but what is most likely to happen.