he made (or is believed to have made) certain others, he obtained more advantages, these led to others yet again, and so, step by step, to victory.' It is all so simple and clear, and there is the analogy of the chess-board to make it clearer and simpler still. It is so simple to point out the obvious road to victory, to say—'Here is the road to future victory for those who will study, not precisely in the same details but along the same general lines and by the observance of great truths that do not alter.'
Though history teem with incidents in which the selfsame path that led to victory with one led to defeat with another, it is easy to get over this by believing in the exception that proves the rule. It is easy to overlook that of two trees, though the branches of both be trimmed identically, one will weather the winter gale and the other not; though both have rooted equally, one is in stronger soil. No doctrine as to the training of branches will save the tree that fell.
This book was begun, some ten years ago, principally with the object of differentiating between the relative value of matériel and personnel in various naval wars. Only gradually did it take its present form, only gradually appeared the idea that under all the strategies lay the main root truth of the 'survival of the fittest test,' that in all ages men have owed victory only to just what prehistoric man trusted to for victory, and that all strategies and tactics are
