'He will be disavowed,' every one said over here, but in less than twenty-four hours those who knew anything knew that the crisis was on us--only their knowledge came too late.

'War between two such civilised and enlightened nations is an impossibility,' one of our leaders of public opinion had declared on the Saturday; by the following Friday the war had indeed become an impossibility, because we could no longer carry it on.

It burst on us with calculated suddenness, and we were just not enough, everywhere where the pressure came.

Our ships were good against their ships, our seamen were better than their seamen, but our ships were not able to cope with their ships plus their superiority in aircraft.

Our trained men were good against their trained men, but they could not be in several places at once, and the enemy could.