(b) Her reserves in men who could approach the continental field in, say, the first year, even under the most vigorous efforts, would never reach anything like the numbers that could be afforded by a conscript nation.  The very maximum that can be or is hoped for by the most sanguine is the putting into the field, after at least a year of war, of less than three-sixteenths of the total Allied forces, although her population is larger than that of France, and more than a third that of the enemy.

(c) She is compelled to garrison and defend, and in places to police, dependencies the population of which will in some cases furnish no addition to the forces of the Allies, and in all cases furnish but a small proportion.

(d) The isolation of her territory by the sea, coupled with her large population and its industrial character, makes Britain potentially the most vulnerable point in the alliance.

So long as her fleet is certainly superior to that of the enemy, and has only to meet oversea attack, this vulnerability is but little felt; but once let her position at sea be lost, or even left undecided, or once let the indiscriminate destruction of commercial marine be seriously begun, and she is at the mercy of that enemy.  For she cannot feed herself save by supplies from without, and she cannot take part in the supplying of armies with men and munitions upon the continent.

(e) She is open to fear aggression upon any one of her independent colonies oversea, and yet she is not able to draw upon them for the whole of their potential strength, or, indeed, for more than a very small proportion of it.  In other words, the British Fleet guarantees some fifteen million of European race beyond the seas from attack by the enemy, but cannot draw from these fifteen million more than an insignificant fraction of the million of men and more which, fully armed, they might furnish; nor has she any control over their finance, so as to be able to count upon the full weight of their wealth; nor can she claim their resources in goods and munitions.  She can only obtain these by paying for them.

There is here a very striking contrast between her position and that of the Germanic Powers.

(f) Her isolation and maritime supremacy, coupled with her industrial character, make her during the strain of equipment the workshop of the Allies.  That this is a great advantage is evident; but the disadvantage attaching to it is that very large proportions of her manhood are necessarily withdrawn from the field for the purposes of her shipbuilding, her communications, her manufactory of arms and all kinds of supplies, her seafaring work, both civil and military.

Of the two other main Allies, the French disadvantage may be thus summarized, and it is slight:—­