PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
This book was originally written three years ago. Since it was first published the greatest war ever known has broken out. To meet that circumstance this particular edition has been revised and brought to date in order to present to the reader the exact state of our Navy when the fighting began.
Modern naval warfare differs much from the warfare of the past; at any rate from the warfare of the Nelson era. But if men and matériel have altered, the general principles of naval war have remained unchanged. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that the wheel of fortune has brought us back to some similitude of those early days when to kill the enemy was the sole idea that obtained, when there were no “rules of civilised war,” when it was simply kill and go on killing.
To these principles Germany has reverted. The early history of the British Navy indicates that we were able to render a good account of ourselves under such conditions. For that matter we made our Navy under such training. It is hard to imagine that by adopting old time methods the Germans will take from us the Sea Empire which we thus earned in the past.
F. T. J.
18th June, 1915.