theirs is running it for all it's worth. He's a splendid chap, and
anyone can see he's right. They've got no colonies to speak of, and
_must_ have them, like us. They can't get them and keep them, and
they can't protect their huge commerce without naval strength. The
command of the sea is _the_ thing nowadays, isn't it? I say, don't
think these are my ideas,' he added, naively. 'It's all out of Mahan
and those fellows. Well, the Germans have got a small fleet at
present, but it's a thundering good one, and they're building hard.
There's the--and the--.' He broke off into a digression on armaments
and speeds in which I could not follow him. He seemed to know every
ship by heart. I had to recall him to the point. 'Well, think of
Germany as a new sea-power,' he resumed. 'The next thing is, what is
her coast-line? It's a very queer one, as you know, split clean in
two by Denmark, most of it lying east of that and looking on the
Baltic, which is practically an inland sea, with its entrance blocked
by Danish islands. It was to evade that block that William built the
ship canal from Kiel to the Elbe, but that could be easily smashed in
war-time. Far the most important bit of coast-line is that which lies
_west_ of Denmark and looks on the North Sea. It's there that Germany
gets her head out into the open, so to speak. It's there that she
fronts us and France, the two great sea-powers of Western Europe, and
it's there that her greatest ports are and her richest commerce.

'Now it must strike you at once that it's ridiculously short compared
with the huge country behind it. From Borkum to the Elbe, as the crow
flies, is only seventy miles. Add to that the west coast of
Schleswig, say 120 miles. Total, say, two hundred. Compare that with
the seaboard of France and England. Doesn't it stand to reason that
every inch of it is important? Now what _sort_ of coast is it? Even
on this small map you can see at once, by all those wavy lines,