THE RAPPROCHEMENT OF NORTH AND SOUTH 427 organised for warresulted in theloss of hundreds oflives.

under a morerigid system have tramped across African deserts and Indian plains in an equally trying climate. A properly organised modern army is one of the most complicated of machines. Its first elements, the individual soldiers, cannot be suddenly created by putting civilians into uniform and giving them rifles. Neither does the signing of a commission make an officer. This seems obvious enough. Yet one hears men speak of the possibility of armies being rapidly raised and equipped in a national emergency, as if personal enthusiasm and patriotic devotion could make up for the want of training,professional knowledge, and, above all. that spirit of unfailing discipline which can only bethe result of slowly acquired habits,both in those who command and those who obey.

Spain, crippled by debt and with an empty treasury, was evenless prepared for the struggle than her conqueror. When Admiral Cervera sailed for the West Indies he told an old friend that he knew he wasgoing to another Trafalgar. "If," he said,"Icould have burnedsome thousands of tons of coal in tactical evolutions,and fired some thousands of shells in targetpractice, wemight do something;but the Government could not afford the cost." Such economy is fatal to all success, and it was typical of the Spanish system, or want of system. Some ofthe Cl ev\ - had never fired a shot until they cleared for action and began their first and last battle. Both on sea and on shore the Spaniards showed no lack of courage,but courage withoutadequate organisationand training,andwithoutintelligent leadership,is useless.

But even when men have been trained to act together in battalions and regiments, merely bringing these together on the same ground does not create an army. The trainedstaff that can weld them into one united force, make them work together on well-chosen lines, and arrange that they shall lack no necessary supplies,is the first condition of assured success. Without such an organised group of leaders victory may,indeed,be won,but it will be due tostill greater deficiencieson the opposingside; and even so, it willbebought at a heavy cost of death and suffering to the vi< tors.

For the United States the best result of the war was the welding together of North and South,theburying of oldmemoriesof civil strife intheconsciousnessof victories wonina common cause. With this came the proud feeling that the new navy under the Stars and Stripes had won its receagnisedplace among the great fleets of the world. It was a day of triumph when the victoriousbattleshipsand cruisers,gaywithflags, steamed up past the quays of New York amid the acclamations of hundreds of thousands. A sadder aspect of the great struggle forempire was revealedwhen the first regiments returned Cuba, with thinned ranks, even the survivors looking worn and wasted with tropical fever. One of the New York regiments hael sailed for Cuba nearly i,-:oo strong; less than 400 formedup in Broadway for the final paradeon the day of their return, and even these were SO enfeebled that it was thought best to shorten their march through the city. Sadder still for Spain was it to see her soldiers returning from the lost battle, many of them only to die in the country for whose flag they had fought in vain.

The operations, both at Santiago and at Manila, proved once more that a fleet needs the co-operation pf an army to complete the work of conquest. The bombardments of San Juan and of the Santiago sea forts confirmed the view thatland batteries can successfully contend even with a powerful modern fleet. The experienceof the naval battles at .Manila and off Santiago confirmed the experience of the Yalu battle in the Chinese war, that inflammablematerials and fittings are the source of the greatest danger to a modern warship.

The American volunteershad shown no lack of courage on the battlefields of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Luzon. But in all three campaigns there had been on several occasions a want of discipline that might easily have ledto disastrous results in the presence C/f a more vigorous enemy. It must be added, however, that the discipline evenof the American regulars wasnot alwaysof thehighest order. The way in which many of the regiments strewedthe lineof inarch in Cuba with stores and equipment,rather than carry any weight in the hot sun, contrasts curiously with the wayin whichsoldiers trained Not the least important result of the war was a widespread change in public seeling in the United States with regard to Great Britain. In the years that preceded it therehad been more than one outbreak of hostility to Englanel, the most notable being the warlike agitation that followedPresident Cleveland's diplomatic intervention on behalf of Venezuela when Congress met in the December of1895. A disposition to