It was a regular army that fought at Mons. The only two first-class nations which depend upon regulars to do their fighting are the British and the American.  This is the vital point of similarity which is the practical manifestation of our military ideas.  We have been the earth’s spoiled children, thanks to the salt seas between us and other powerful military nations.  Before any other Power could reach the United States it must overwhelm the British navy, and then it must overwhelm ours and bring its forces in transports.  Sea-power, you say.  That is the facile word, so ready to the lips that we do not realize the wonder of it any more than of the sun rising and setting.

When we want soldiers our plan still is to advertise for them.  The ways of our ancestors remain ours.  We think that the volunteer must necessarily make the best soldier because he offers his services; while the conscript—­rather a term of opprobrium to us—­must be lukewarm.  It hardly occurs to us that some forms of persuasion may amount to conscription, or that the volunteer, won by oratorical appeal to his emotions or by social pressure, may suffer a reaction after enlistment which will make him lukewarm also, particularly as he sees others, also young and fit, hanging back.  Nor does it occur to us that there may be virtue in that fervour of national patriotism aroused by the command that all must serve, which, on the continent in this war, has meant universal exaltation to sacrifice.  The life of Jones means as much to him as the life of Smith does to him; and when the whole nation is called to arms there ought to be no favourites in life-giving.

For the last hundred years, if we except the American Civil War, ours have been comparatively little wars.  The British regular army has policed an empire and sent punitive expeditions against rebellious tribes with paucity of numbers, in a work which the British so well understand.  Our little regular army took care of the Red Indians as our frontier advanced from the Alleghenies to the Pacific.  To put it bluntly, we have hired someone to do our fighting for us.

Without ever seriously studying the business of soldiering, the average Anglo-Saxon thought of himself as a potential soldier, taking his sense of martial superiority largely from the work of the long-service, severely drilled regular.  Also, we used our fists rather than daggers or duelling swords in personal encounters and, man to man, unequipped with fire-arms or blades, the quality which is responsible for our sturdy pioneering individualism gave us confidence in our physical prowess.

Alas! modern wars are not fought with fists.  A knock-kneed man who knows how to use a machine-gun and has one to use—­which is also quite important—­could mow down all the leading heavy-weights of the United States and England, with the latest champion leading the charge.