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$1$ The decision to concentrate the British Fleet in the North Sea was announced on February 2 in a speech by Mr. Arthur Lee, Civil Lord of the Admiralty at Eastleigh, responding to a toast to the Imperial Forces.

$2$ Mr. Lee, according to the published reports of his speech, said:

It is interesting to compare the sentence "under existing circumstances the British Navy would get its blow in first, before the other side had time even to read in the papers that war had been declared," with Lord Fisher's subsequent avowals—he was then First Sea Lord—in his "Memoirs," published in 1919, as to his desire to "Copenhagen" the German Fleet, i.e ., to attack without a previous declaration of war. (See Note 34): also Chronology.

The Berliner Tageblatt (moderate Liberal) commenting upon Mr. Lee's speech asked the meaning of this "threat of war in time of peace." Mr. Lee issued a diplomatic correction of his speech five days later. He declared that what he had said was this:

"The British Fleet is now prepared strategically for every conceivable emergency, for, we must assume that all foreign naval powers are possible enemies. Owing to the growth of near naval powers, we have, unfortunately, more possible enemies than