There was an old and true saying, that "England's best bulwarks were her wooden walls." They are no longer wooden, but it still remains an admitted fact that England's strongest bulwarks should be her Navy, and that any other nation may be possessed of an equally good one; also that our best bulwark should be equal to, or approach, the fighting power of the bulwarks owned by any two possible hostile nations.
To be strong is to stave off war; to be weak is to invite attack. It was our policy of laissez faire, a weak Navy and an Army bound up with red tape, that caused this disastrous invasion of England. Had our Fleet been sufficient for its work, invasion would have remained a threat, and nothing more. Our Navy was not only our first, but our last line of defence from an Imperial point of view; for, as a writer in the Army and Navy Gazette pointed out in 1893, it was equally manifest and unquestionable that without land forces to act as the spearhead to the Navy's over-sea shaft, the offensive tactics so essential to a thorough statesmanlike defensive policy could not be carried out. Again, the mobility and efficiency of our Regular Army should have been such that the victory of our Fleet could be speedily and vigorously followed by decisive blows on the enemy's territory.
Already the news of the landing of the enemy had—besides causing a thrill such as had never before been known in our "tight little island"—produced its effect upon the price of food in London as elsewhere. In England we had only five days' bread-stuffs, and as the majority of our supplies came from Russia the price of bread trebled within twelve hours, and the ordinary necessaries of life were proportionately dearer.
But the dice had been thrown, and the sixes lay with Moloch.
CHAPTER VII.
BOMB OUTRAGES IN LONDON.
n that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, scenes were witnessed in the metropolis which were of the most disgraceful character. The teeming city, from dawn till midnight, was in a feverish turmoil, the throngs in its streets discussing the probable turn of affairs, singing patriotic songs, and giving vent to utterances of heroic intentions interspersed with much horse play.