Meanwhile (1898) the Americans had driven the Spaniards out of their last oversea possessions, much to the rage of the Germans, who had hoped to get these themselves. The German admiral at Manilla in the Philippines blustered against the American fleet under Admiral Dewey; but was soon brought to book by Sir Edward Chichester, who told him he would have to fight the British squadron as well if he gave any more trouble about things that were none of his business.
The same year the Germans tried to set the French and British by the ears over Fashoda. A French expedition came out of French Africa into the Sudan, where Kitchener's army was in possession after having freed Egypt from the power of the Madhi's wild Sudanese. French and British both claimed the same place; and for some years Fashoda was like a red rag to a bull when mentioned to Frenchmen; for Kitchener had got there first. Luckily he had fought for France in 1870, spoke French like a Frenchman, and soon made friends with the French on the spot. More luckily still, King Edward the Wise went to Paris in 1903, despite the fears of his Ministers, who did all they could to make him change his mind, and then, when this failed, to go there as a private person. They were afraid that memories of Fashoda and of all the anti-British feeling stirred up by Germans in Europe and America over the Boer War (1899-1902) would make the French unfriendly. But he went to pay his respects to France on his accession to the British Throne, showed how perfectly he understood the French people, said and did exactly the right thing in the right way; and, before either friends or foes knew what was happening, had so won the heart of France that French and British, seeing what friends they might be, began that Entente Cordiale (good understanding of each other) which our glorious Alliance in the Great War ought to make us keep forever. Paris named one of her squares in his honour, Place Edouard Sept; and there the wise king's statue stands to remind the world of what he did to save it from the German fury.
Next year Lord Fisher went to London as First Sea Lord (1904-10) to get the Navy ready for the coming war. He struck off the list of fighting ships every single one that would not be fit for battle in the near future. He put "nucleus crews" on board all ships fit for service that were not in sea-going squadrons for the time being; so that when the Reserves were called out for the war they would find these nucleus crews ready to show them all the latest things aboard. He started a new class of battleships by launching (1906) the world-famous Dreadnought. This kind of ship was so much better than all others that all foreign navies, both friends and foes, have copied it ever since, trying to keep up with each new British improvement as it appeared.
But the greatest thing of all was Fisher's new plan for bringing the mighty British fleets closer together and so "handier" for battles with the Germans. The old plan of posting British squadrons all over the world takes us back to the Conquest of Canada; for it was the work of St. Vincent, to whom Wolfe handed his will the night before the Battle of the Plains (1759). St. Vincent's plan of 1803 was so good that it worked well, with a few changes, down to Fisher's anti-German plan of 1904, about which time the French and British Navies began talking over the best ways of acting together when the Germans made their spring. In 1905—the centenary of Trafalgar—a British fleet visited France and a French fleet visited England. It was a thrilling sight to see that noble Frenchman, Admiral Caillard, whose example was followed by all his officers, stand up in his carriage to salute the Nelson statue in Trafalgar Square.
In 1908, when Canada was celebrating the Tercentenary of a life that could never have begun without Drake or been saved without Nelson, the French and British Prime Ministers (Clemenceau and Campbell-Bannerman) were talking things over in Paris. The result was that the British left the Mediterranean mainly in charge of the French Navy, while the French left the Channel mostly and the North Sea entirely in charge of the British. There was no treaty then or at any other time. Each Government left its own Parliament, and therefore its own People, whose servant it was, to decide freely when the time came. But the men at the head of the French and British fleets and armies arranged, year by year, what they would do when they got the word GO! At the same time (six years before the war) that the Prime Ministers were in conference in Paris Lord Haldane, then Secretary of State for War, was warning Lord French in London that he would be expected to command the British army against the Germans in France, and that he had better begin to study the problem at once.
A great deal of sickening nonsense has been talked about our having been so "righteous" because so "unprepared." We were not prepared to attack anybody; and quite rightly too; though we need not get self-righteous over it. But our great Mother Country's Navy was most certainly and most rightly prepared to defend the Empire and its allies against the attack that was bound to come. If France and Great Britain had not been well enough prepared for self-defence, then the Germans must have won; and wrong would have triumphed over right all over the world. There is only one answer to all this "Pacifistic" stuff-and-nonsense—if you will not fight on the side of right, then you help those who fight on the side of wrong; and if you see your enemy preparing to attack you wrongfully, and you do not prepare to defend yourself, then you are a fool as well as a knave.
All the great experts in statesmanship and war saw the clash coming; and saw that it was sure to come, because the German war party could force it on the moment they were ready. Moreover, it was known that the men of this war party would have forced it on at once if a peace party had ever seemed likely to oust them. The real experts even foresaw the chief ways in which the war would be fought. Lord Fisher foresaw the danger of sea-going submarines long before submarines were used for anything but the defence of harbours. More than this, ten years before the war he named all the four senior men who led the first British army into Flanders. In Lord Esher's diary for the 17th of January, 1904, ten years before the war, is the following note about Fisher's opinion on the best British generals: "French, because he never failed in South Africa, and because he has the splendid gift of choosing the right man (he means Douglas Haig). Then Smith-Dorrien and Plumer." In the same way Joffre and Foch were known to be the great commanders of the French. Again in the same way (that is, by the foreknowledge of the real experts) Lord Jellicoe, though a junior rear-admiral at the time, was pointed out at the Quebec Tercentenary (1908) as the man who would command the Grand Fleet; while Sir David Beatty and Sir Charles Madden were also known as "rising stars."
The following years were fuller than ever of the coming war. In 1910 the Kaiser went to Vienna and let the world know that he was ready to stand by Austria in "shining armour." Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece were all to be used for the grand German railway from Berlin to Bagdad that was to cut Russia off from the rest of Europe, get all the trade of the Near East into German hands, and, by pushing down to the Persian Gulf, threaten the British oversea line between England and Asia.
During the next three years the Italian conquest of Tripoli (next door to Egypt) and the two wars in the Balkans hurt Germany's friends, the Turks and Bulgarians, a great deal, and thus threatened the German Berlin-to-Bagdad "line of penetration" through the Near East and into the Asiatic sea flank of the hated British. With 1914 came the completion of the enlarged Kiel Canal (exactly as foretold by Fisher years before); and this, together with the state of the world for and against the Germans, made the war an absolute certainty at once. The murder of the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand, was only an excuse to goad the gallant Serbians into war. Any other would have done as well if it had only served the German turn.