The Spirit of World-Wide War
By Editor
THE following from the London Daily Mail of October 26, 1912, from England's highest military authority, certainly does not portend peace: 'Lord Roberts, in an impressive speech at Manchester on Tuesday affirmed once more that the 'Nation in Arms' was the only sure bulwark of this empire and these islands, and gave this message as his ultimate counsel to the nation: 'Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men, for the time of your ordeal is at hand.' 'Now,' he said, 'just as in 1866 and in 1870, war will take place the instant the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human calculation can be made certain. Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. That is the time-honored policy of her foreign office. It is her policy at the present hour. It is, or should be, the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part in history. 'There is one way in which Britain can have peace not only with Germany, but with every other power, and that is to present such a battle front by sea and land that no power or probable combination of powers shall dare to attack her without the certainty of disaster. But there is a way in which Britain is certain to have war and its horrors and calamities: it is by persisting in her present course of unpreparedness, her apathy, unintelligence, and blindness, and in her disregard of the warnings of the most ordinary political insight, as well as of the example of history. 'What, then, is my plan, and what is my ultimate counsel to the nation and the message to my countrymen at this solemn hour? It is—"Arm and prepare to quit yourselves like men, for the time of your ordeal is at hand." '