The one thing most needed for the future is to put the idea of the nation and the will to help England into every man’s soul.  That cannot be done by writing or by talking, but only by setting every man while he is young to do something for his country.  There is one way of bringing that about.  It is by making every citizen a soldier in a national army.  The man who has learned to serve his country has learned to love it.  He is the true citizen, and of such a nation is composed.  Great Britain needs a statesman to lead her and a policy at home and abroad.  But such a policy must not be sought and cannot be found upon party lines.  The statesman who is to expound it to his countrymen and represent it to the world must be the leader not of one party but of both.  In short, a statesman must be a nation leader, and the first condition of his existence is that there should be a nation for him to lead.

XIII.

THE EFFECT OF THE NATIONALISATION OF WAR UPON LEADERSHIP

The argument of the preceding chapters points to the conclusion that if Great Britain is to maintain her position as a great Power, probably even if she is to maintain her independence, and certainly if she is to retain the administration of India and the leadership of the nations that have grown out of her colonies, her statesmen and her people must combine to do three things:—­

1.  To adopt a policy having due relation to the condition and needs of the European Continent.

2.  To make the British navy the best possible instrument of naval warfare.

3.  To make the British army strong enough to be able to turn the scales in a continental war.

What are for the navy and for the army the essentials of victory?  If there had never been any wars, no one would know what was essential to victory.  People would have their notions, no doubt, but these notions would be guesses and could not be verified until the advent of a war, which might bring with it a good deal of disappointment to the people who had guessed wrong.  But there have already been wars enough to afford ample material for deductions as to the causes and conditions of success.  I propose to take the two best examples that can be found, one for war at sea and the other for war on land, in order to show exactly the way in which victory is attained.

By victory, of course, I mean crushing the enemy.  In a battle in which neither side is crippled, and after which the fleets part to renew the struggle after a short interval, one side or the other may consider that it has had the honours of the day.  It may have lost fewer ships than the enemy, or have taken more.  It may have been able and willing to continue the fight, though the enemy drew off, and its commander may be promoted or decorated for having maintained the credit of his country or of the service to which he belongs.  But such a battle is not victory either in a political or a strategical sense.  It does not lead to the accomplishment of the purpose of the war, which is to dictate conditions of peace.  That result can be obtained only by crushing the enemy’s force and so making him powerless to renew the contest.