A lack of foresight

IT would as yet be difficult to estimate the effect produced in Europe by the emergence of the Balkan States as a first-class military power. One result has been to upset the calculations of Germany… The practical question that follows is, What is the duty of Great Britain under the new circumstances?

‘General von Goltz has in a recent speech laid down the principles that, he said, are actuating Germany, and they would equally apply to Great Britain. He does not think that Germany will be involved in a great war in his time or in the time of his children; but the reason he gives is that Germany is making herself so formidable that no Power, unless urged by some by some unimaginable necessity, would attack her.

‘That is precisely what we should do here. While pursuing the Pacific policy which one Ministry has inherited from the other since Gladstone’s time, we should yet make the position of the country so impregnable that attack would be an act of madness.’ (Country Notes, March 13, 1913)

Never on the battlefield, not even in the wildest and most dangerous past-time ever devised, that of aviation, has great courage and devotion been shown. These men died in battle, not with men, but with the elements… Great Britain will never forget the story

The Antarctic Tragedy, February 15, 1913