"This war has taught us nothing. The state of the Spanish navy has been for years so hopelessly rotten that when the moment for action arrived its military value was nil. The Spanish gunners hardly seem to have got a hit in on any American ship. Nothing is taught us as to the relative value of the belt or deck armor."
As regards ships versus forts, he said:
"The Spanish forts seem to have been, probably from various reasons, as inefficient as their ships. Both the Spaniards and the Americans in their use of torpedo craft have shown very remarkable absence of dash. Practically neither side has made any use of this dreaded arm."
Captain Montagu Burrow, who is professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, had this opinion to offer:
"There are no new lessons to be learned, but only confirmation of some that are very old. The state of unreadiness in Spain when the war suddenly broke out might, from the unfortunate circumstances of that country, have been expected, but if the United States had had to deal with a Power anything like its own strength it would have found its own position intensely difficult. The war will probably have the effect of inducing their government to keep up a standing army and navy of a very superior kind to that of their present system. The recent warning of their admirable writer, Captain Mahau, will now have a chance of being listened to, but the Americans have only to expand what is already proved to be good. The training of their officers and men must have been of a superior kind to enable them to handle their ships and point their guns with such excellent effect. It was at one time considered doubtful whether modern guns could be as accurately fired at great distances as the old armament at shorter ranges, but they were laid quite as accurately, and were far more destructive."
As the New York Herald declared at the time, the United States had now attained their majority. They were now of age, and their voice must be heard in the council of nations.
There were misgivings all over Europe, especially in Germany and France, old and bitter foes though they are.
A prominent Parisian thus summed up these misgivings:
"The young American giant," he said, "is only trying his strength on Spain, but what if he should use it against us?"