in the War Office, that has marred so many a good military scheme, had,
I may say, little or nothing to do with it from first to last. When will
civilian Secretaries of State for War cease from troubling in war
affairs?" In the case of the Soudan campaigns, on the other hand, Lord
Kitchener and I had to rely--and our reliance was not misplaced--on the
Cabinet and on the parliamentary elements of the Government, to prevent
excessive interference from the London offices.]

[Footnote 55: I was present for a few weeks, as a spectator, with
Grant's army at the siege of Petersburg in 1864, but the experience was
too short to be of much value.]

[Footnote 56: _Art of War_, Jomini, p. 59.]

[Footnote 57: I think I am correct in saying that Sir Evelyn Wood was of
a contrary opinion, but I have been unable to verify this statement by
reference to any contemporaneous document.]

[Footnote 58: On the 21st of March 1884 Sir Alfred Lyall wrote to Mr.
Henry Reeve: "The Mahdi's fortunes do not interest India. The talk in
some of the papers about the necessity of smashing him, in order to
avert the risk of some general Mahomedan uprising, is futile and
imaginative."--_Memoirs of Henry Reeve_, vol. ii. p. 329.]




V

THE INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF FREE TRADE