Page:The battle of Dorking; (IA battleofdorking00chesrich).pdf/12

vi desperate condition of things is all the more remarkable as Englishmen had just witnessed the crushing defeat of their great ally—supposed to be the first military power of Europe—by the enemy they are supposed to despise. The story is otherwise simple enough. The secret annexation of Holland and Denmark is disclosed. People said we might have kept out of the trouble. But an impulsive nation egged on the Government who, confident that our old luck would pull us through, at once declare war. The fleet, trying to close with the enemy, is destroyed in "a few minutes" by the "deadly engines" left behind by the evasive enemy; our amateurish armies are defeated on our own soil, and voilà tout.

Remarkable must have been the national insouciance, or despondent the eye which viewed it, to explain the impassioned actuality of such a reveillematin.

For one thing it may be remarked that The Battle of Dorking, though in a sense the "history" of the pamphlet is already "ancient," is really the first of its kind. The topic, then of such inspiring freshness, has since become well worn.

Mutatis mutandis, doubtless, much of General Chesney's advice and warning might have been repeated on the occasion of the Boer War. If that were not a practical "alarum to the patriotic