A Forgotten Maxim 277 



We must therefore make up our minds once for 

 all to the fact that it is too late to make ready for 

 war when the fight has once begun. The prepara- 

 tion must come before that. In the case of the Civil 

 War none of these conditions applied. In 1861 we 

 had a good fleet, and the Southern Confederacy 

 had not a ship. We were able to blockade the 

 Southern ports at once, and we could improvise en- 

 gines of war more than sufficient to put against those 

 of an enemy who also had to improvise them, and 

 who labored under even more serious disadvantages. 

 The Monitor was got ready in the nick of time to 

 meet the Merrimac, because the Confederates had to 

 plan and build the latter while we were planning and 

 building the former; but if ever we have to go to 

 war with a modern military power we shall find its 

 Merrimacs already built, and it will then be alto- 

 gether too late to try to build Monitors to meet them. 



If this point needs any emphasis surely the history 

 of the War of 1812 applies to it. For twelve years 

 before that war broke out even the blindest could 

 see that we were almost certain to be drawn into 

 hostilities with one or the other of the pair of com- 

 batants whose battle-royal ended at Waterloo. Yet 

 we made not the slightest preparation for war. The 

 authorities at Washington contented themselves with 

 trying to build a flotilla of gunboats which could 

 defend our own harbors without making it necessary 

 to take the offensive ourselves. We already pos- 

 sessed a dozen first-class cruisers, but not a battle- 

 ship of any kind. With almost incredible folly the 



