How then is it possible to differentiate, to describe where and in what manner this luck occurs?

Fortunately, this has been done for us in seven words by Seignelay, the Minister of Marine to Louis Quatorze in 1692.  Speaking of Admiral de Tourville, who defeated the English and Dutch at the Battle of Beachy Head, July 10th, 1690, Seignelay says of him that he was “poltron de tete mais pas de coeur.”  The judgment was just:  de Tourville, as recklessly gallant as any French noble of them all, failed to live up to his responsibilities two years later at the Battle of La Hogue.  Mahan says:  “The caution in his pursuit of the Allies after Beachy Head, though so different in appearance, came from the same trait which impelled him two years later to lead his fleet to almost certain destruction at La Hogue because he had the King’s order in his pocket.  He was brave enough to do anything, but not strong enough to bear the heaviest burdens.”

We see the application of this truth in the period which we are considering; particularly is it borne in upon us in the case of the leaders of the Ottoman Turks.  Serving as they did a despot of unlimited powers, failure in the success of his arms was apt to lead to the immediate and violent death of the man in command.  If, therefore, precise instructions were issued, they were, as a rule, carried out to the letter; as in case of defeat an effort could be made to shift responsibility on to the shoulders of the Padishah.  Failure owing to initiative was certain of prompt retribution; success complete and absolute would be the only justification for a departure from orders.

Far otherwise was it with the Sea-wolves, who were a law to themselves and to themselves alone.  Should they care “to place it on the hazard of a die to win or lose it all,” there was none to say them nay, there was no punishment save that of defeat.  This it was that so often conduced to their success.  Despots as were such men as Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa and Dragut, they were none the less dependent on the goodwill of their followers.  If, therefore, they decided on a desperate enterprise, they appealed to the fighting instincts, the cupidity, and the fanaticism of these men.  Should they succeed in gaining their good will for the attempt which they meditated, then all was well with them, and behind them was no grim sinister figure whose word was death and whose breath was destruction.

Freed from all the trammels which bound the ordinary warrior of the day in which they lived, they were able, as we have seen, to go far; for the man in whom supreme ability is united to absolute unscrupulousness is the most dangerous foe of the human race.  The despotism of the leaders among the sea-wolves was not theirs by right divine, as men considered it to be in the case of the Padishah; none the less in its practical application it was but little inferior to that wielded by the Sultan.  For reasons of policy, the Sea-wolves allied themselves to the Grand