"A year or so later I read in some newspaper that a fortune awaited the man who could invent something that could be applied to ships as the land Kriegspiel to armies. I thought I could do with that fortune, so packed the game in an empty Australian beef-tin and sent it to the Admiralty, together with a letter in which the following magnificent sentence occurred: 'I shall not be above accepting financial remuneration, and for convenience this can be paid in instalments.'
"In due course 'My Lords' returned the game with thanks. They had 'inspected it with much interest,' they said.
"Somehow I doubt it. After the lapse of many years I still remember vividly the smell of that old meat-tin in which the game was sent to them.
"My next step was one which is, I believe, chronic with disappointed inventors. I wrote letters to the newspapers attacking Admiralty policy in general, with a view to making the callous authorities tremble! I never witnessed the trembling, but as out of this campaign I grew into what is called a 'naval expert,' I suppose I owe the Admiralty a debt of gratitude! However, that is another story.
"Meanwhile, war game languished, till some seven years ago it was found by accident in a lumber-room. Even then it was resuscitated only as a toy. I used to take it to the Majestic, and it was played there very much à la ping-pong, till one day the captain, Prince Louis of Battenberg, asked about it, and wished to see the rules.
"Feeling somewhat of a fraud," says Mr. Jane, "I hastily recast the thing into its original serious mould, plus a variety of improvements that occurred to me, or were suggested by various naval friends.
"The game was then played in the Majestic once more, and 'caught on.' To my astonishment I was deluged with letters asking about the game. The first came from the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, the Czar's brother-in-law, who, with that absence of 'side' so characteristic of the Romanoffs, wrote himself as a naval officer. He had, he told me, himself invented a naval war game, the strategical part of which was successful, but the tactical not what he had hoped for it. If mine were satisfactory, he would do all he could for it.
"That is how the game came to have its Imperial and Royal 'godfathers,' as announced on the title-page. Royal sailors are usually regarded as mere ornamental dummies, but both the Grand Duke Alexander and Prince Louis of Battenberg were responsible for many excellent improvements in the game, for which I, perhaps, have received the credit.
"There were two other godfathers—Rear-Admiral H. J. May, of the British Navy, and Captain Kawashima, of the Japanese Navy. The former expended endless labour in revising the rules; the latter it was who played with me all the early experimental games to test the rules, and alter them when necessary to make practice as simple as possible. We used to fight little one-man 'wars,' beginning at about ten in the morning and carrying on till after midnight. Captain Kawashima is now in command of the Matsushima (the famous cruiser that was flagship at Yalu in the Chino-Japanese War), and when I remember the painstaking enthusiasm he used to put into the 'wars' he and I had, I think that he will go far in the present war.
"A lecture at the United Service Institution followed the Majestic battle, and thus the game 'took root.' It is in every navy in the world now."