The navy and the powder-boat would be all-sufficient, and I rather liked the notion, as the expedition would be entirely a naval affair.

Here is how the pirates were able to take whatever they wanted from anybody else: they had the best boats in the world, and they were meaner than anybody else, and they had gunpowder, which was a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulphur. They touched this seemingly listless powder with fire, and it turned violently into gas. This gas blew projectiles out of metal tubes at terrific velocities. The projectiles cut through meat and bone very easily; so the pirates could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away. The chief weapon of the sea pirates, however, was their capacity to astonish. Nobody else could believe, until it was much too late, how heartless and greedy they were.

They have discovered that the length of time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships and wasted our crews, and that with the completeness of our crews and the soundness of the pristine efficiency of our navy has departed. For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and dry them out because the enemy's vessels being as many or more than our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.

This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensign to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of wit start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.

The enemy unquestionably reckoned on being able by a campaign of frightfulness to intimidate our sailors from putting to sea. No other explanation is possible of the numerous cases of brutality and outrage that were perpetrated—presumably by express order of the High Command—against defenceless men after their vessels had been torpedoed and sunk. The firing on and scuttling of open boats at sea, and triumphant proclamation of ships "spurlos versenkt"—sunk without trace, their whole crews being drowned mercilessly—were all intended to shake the morale of British seamen and make them unwilling to sign on for further voyages. But in this object the German Navy was completely unsuccessful.

Wilhelm II styled himself Admiral of the Atlantic, though that ocean had never been claimed to be an inland waterway. The fleet of gunboats that cruised up and down the Yangtze was a standing temptation for the local representatives of the Great Powers to give point to their often unreasonable demands by a demonstration or the threat of a bombardment. Many instances could be given of this kind of 'gunboat diplomacy' in the interests of missionaries, private debtors and even ordinary Christian converts.

The mistake was enshrined in the preamble to the first German Navy Bill of 1900, by which the new High Seas Fleet was to be big enough to constitute a provocation and a worry to the British, but not big enough to defeat the Royal Navy. The Germans thus drove the British into alliance with their enemies without as a compensation being able to defend German overseas colonies and trade... The basic truth about the High Seas Fleet was that it should never have been built.

I'd throw all the guns and the tanks in the sea, for they are mistakes of a past history.

On the evening of December 8, therefore, after the Japanese had bombed the airfields and destroyed many of General MacArthur's planes, our submarines and motor torpedo boats, which were still in Philippine water, were left with the task of impeding the enemy's advance.

My plan proposed to throw a small but well-equipped air force into China. Japan, like England, floated her lifeblood on the sea and could be defeated more easily by slashing her salty arteries then by stabbing for her heart. ... The first phase of these operations entailed pounding the airfields, ports, staging areas, and shipping lanes where the Japanese were accumulating their military strength in Formosa, Hainan Island, Canton, and Indo-China. ... The second phase was to be directed against the Japanese home islands, to burn out the industrial heart of the Empire with fire-bomb attacks on the teeming bamboo ant heaps of Honshu and Kyushu.

Mechanical not less than strategic conditions had combined to produce at this early period in the war a deadlock both on sea and land. The strongest fleet was paralysed in its offensive by the menace of the mine and the torpedo. The strongest army was arrested in its advance by the machine gun......The mechanical danger must be overcome by a mechanical remedy.....Something must be discovered which would render ships immune from the torpedo, and make it unnecessary for soldiers to bare their breasts to the machine-gun hail.

We do not need a large land force. The present size of our regular Army is entirely adequate, but it should continue to be supplemented by a National Guard and Reserves, and especially with the equipment and organization in our industries for furnishing supplies. When we turn to the sea the situation is different. We have not only a long coast line, distant outlying possessions, a foreign commerce unsurpassed in importance, and foreign investments unsurpassed in amount, the number of our people and value of our treasure to be protected, but we are also bound by international treaty to defend the Panama Canal. Having few fuelling stations, we require ships of large tonnage, and, having scarcely any merchant vessels capable of mounting five- or six-inch guns, it is obvious that, based on positions, we are entitled to a larger number of warships than a nation having these advantages.

They were prodigiously shattered, from the fire of our cannon. The same evening, Colonel Tupper attempted passing the ships with the petiaugres, loaded with flour. The enemy manned several barges, two tenders, and a row-galley, and attacked them. Our people ran the petiaugres ashore, and landed and defended them. The enemy attempted to land several times, but were repulsed. The fire lasted about an hour and a half, and the enemy moved off. Colonel Tupper still thinks he can transport the provision in flat-bottomed boats. A second attempt shall be speedily made. We lost one man, mortally wounded.

The success of our surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will prove to be the Waterloo of the war to follow. For this reason the Imperial Navy is massing the cream of its strength in ships and planes to assure success.