Military Books

CHAPTER ONE For several months it has been the pleasant duty of the writer of the following deliverance to travel around the United States, lecturing upon sundry War topics to indulgent American audiences. No one—least of all a parochial Briton—can engage upon such an enterprise for long without beginning to realize and admire the average American's amazing instinct for public affairs, and the... more...

BARON BEYENSPolitical designs of Francis Ferdinand.The Archduke Francis Ferdinand will go down to posterity without having yielded up his secret. Great political designs have been ascribed to him, mainly on the strength of his friendship with William II. What do we really know about him? He was strong-willed and obstinate, very Clerical, very Austrian, disliking the Hungarians to such an extent that he... more...

I have thus purposely sketched the leading features of a couple of momentous, although not eventful, years—so far as the foreign policy of the Republic is concerned—in order that the reader may better understand the bearings and the value of the Advocate's actions and writings at that period. This work aims at being a political study. I would attempt to exemplify the influence of individual... more...

PREFACE The Mesopotamian War was a side-show, so distant from Europe that even the tragedy of Kut and the slaughter which failed to save our troops and prestige were felt chiefly in retrospect, when the majority of the men who suffered so vainly had gone into the silence of death or of captivity. When Maude's offensive carried our arms again into Kut, and beyond, to Baghdad, interest revived; but... more...

The Revolution of 1896 Spain maintained control of the Philippine Islands for more than three centuries and a half, during which period the tyranny, misconduct and abuses of the Friars and the Civil and Military Administration exhausted the patience of the natives and caused them to make a desperate effort to shake off the unbearable galling yoke on the 26th and 31st August, 1896, then commencing the... more...

PREFACE TO THE FINAL EDITION. During the course of the war some sixteen Editions of this work have appeared, each of which was, I hope, a little more full and accurate than that which preceded it. I may fairly claim, however, that the absolute mistakes made have been few in number, and that I have never had occasion to reverse, and seldom to modify, the judgments which I have formed. In this final... more...

INTRODUCTIONWhileGreat Britain remains an island, with dominion over palm and pine, it is to the sea that her four hundred millions of people must look for the key to all that has been achieved in the past and all that the future promises in the quickening dawn of a new era.Not only over Great Britain alone, however, does the ocean cast its spell, for it is the free highway of the world, sailed by the... more...

CHAPTER I. BRAZILIAN AND PORTUGUESE FACTIONS—DON PEDEO ORDERED TO QUIT BRAZIL—APPOINTED "PERPETUAL PROTECTOR"—PROCLAIMED EMPEROR OF BRAZIL—EFFORTS TO OBTAIN FOREIGN OFFICERS AND SEAMEN—THE NAVAL COMMAND OFFERED TO ME—ACCEPTATION THEREOF—ARRIVAL AT RIO DE JANEIRO—VISIT OF INSPECTION TO THE SQUADRON—CONDITION OF THE VESSELS—INFERIORITY OF SEAMEN—IMPERIAL AFFABILITY—ATTEMPT... more...

CHAPTER I Introductory: On the State and its Relation to War and Peace To many thoughtful men ripe in worldly wisdom it is known of a verity that war belongs indefeasibly in the Order of Nature. Contention, with manslaughter, is indispensable in human intercourse, at the same time that it conduces to the increase and diffusion of the manly virtues. So likewise, the unspoiled youth of the race, in the... more...

CHAPTER I The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of... more...