The Conquest of America | Page 7

nation or lessen its readiness to undertake new
wars. On the contrary, the habit of fighting leads easily to more fighting.
The Napoleonic wars lasted over twenty years. At the close of our civil
war we had great generals and a formidable army of veteran soldiers
and would have been willing and able immediately to engage in a fresh
war against France had she not yielded to our demand and withdrawn
Maximilian from Mexico. Bulgaria recently fought two wars within a
year, the second leaving her exhausted and prostrate; yet within two
years she was able to enter upon a third war stronger than ever.
If Germany wins in the present great conflict she may quite
conceivably turn to America for the vast money indemnity that she will
be unable to exact from her depleted enemies in Europe; and if
Germany loses or half loses she may decide to retrieve her desperate
fortunes in this tempting and undefended field. With her African
empire hopelessly lost to her, where more naturally than to facile
America will she turn for her coveted place in the sun?
And if not Germany, it may well be some other great nation that will
attack us. Perhaps Great Britain! Especially if our growing merchant
marine threatens her commercial supremacy of the sea, which is her life.
Perhaps Japan! whose attack on Germany in 1914 shows plainly that
she merely awaits favourable opportunity to dispose of any of her rivals
in the Orient. Let us bear in mind that, in the opinion of the world's
greatest authorities, we Americans are to-day totally unprepared to

defend ourselves against a first-class foreign power. My story aims to
show this, and high officers in our army and navy, who have assisted
me in the preparation of this book and to whom I am grateful, assure
me that I have set forth the main facts touching our military
defencelessness without exaggeration. C. M.
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY, 1916.
CHAPTER I
I WITNESS THE BLOWING UP OF THE PANAMA CANAL
In my thirty years' service as war correspondent of the London Times I
have looked behind the scenes of various world happenings, and have
known the thrill of personally facing some great historic crises; but
there is nothing in my experience so dramatic, so pregnant with human
consequences, as the catastrophe of April 27, 1921, when the Gatun
Locks of the Panama Canal were destroyed by dynamite.
At that moment I was seated on the shaded, palm-bordered piazza of
the Grand Hotel at Colon, discussing with Rear-Admiral Thomas Q.
Allyn of the United States Navy the increasing chances that America
might find herself plunged into war with Japan. For weeks the clouds
had been darkening, and it was now evident that the time had come
when the United States must either abandon the Monroe Doctrine and
the open door in China, or fight to maintain these doctrines.
"Mr. Langston," the Admiral was saying, "the situation is extremely
grave. Japan intends to carry out her plans of expansion in Mexico and
China, and possibly in the Philippines; there is not a doubt of it. Her
fleet is cruising somewhere in the Pacific,--we don't know where,--and
our Atlantic fleet passed through the Canal yesterday, as you know, to
make a demonstration of force in the Pacific and to be ready for--for
whatever may come."
His hands closed nervously, and he studied the horizon with half-shut
eyes.

In the course of our talk Admiral Allyn had admitted that the United
States was woefully unprepared for conflict with a great power, either
on sea or land.
"The blow will be struck suddenly," he went on, "you may be sure of
that. Our military preparations are so utterly inadequate that we may
suffer irreparable harm before we can begin to use our vast resources.
You know when Prussia struck Austria in 1866 the war was over in
three months. When Germany struck France in 1870 the decisive battle,
Sedan, was fought forty-seven days later. When Japan struck Russia,
the end was foreseen within four or five months."
"It wasn't so in the great European war," I remarked.
"Why not? Because England held the mastery of the sea. But we hold
the mastery of nothing. Our fleet is barely third among the nations and
we are frightfully handicapped by our enormous length of coast line
and by this canal."
"The Canal gives us a great advantage, doesn't it? I thought it doubled
the efficiency of our fleet?"
"It does nothing of the sort. The Canal may be seized. It may be put out
of commission for weeks or months by landslides or earthquakes. A
few hostile ships of the Queen Elizabeth class lying ten miles off shore
at either end, with ranges exactly fixed, or a good shot from an
aeroplane, could