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CAN GERMANY INVADE ENGLAND?
keep the machinery in motion, and load and fire the guns, the finest ship in the world is but so much dead matter, fit only for the scrap-heap[1]; and here too Great Britain's numerical strength is far in excess of that of Germany or any other nation.
TABLE IX
| Men on Active Service | Reserve | Length of Service | |
| Great Britain | 134,000[2] | 57,904[3] | 12 years[4] |
| Germany | 60,805[2] | 110,000[3] | 3 years[4][5] |
- ↑ "The one abiding lesson of every great naval victory, from Salamis to Tsu-Shima, is that men are more than material; and the mistaken inferences drawn from them are mainly due to forgetfulness of the fact."—The Ocean Empire., p. 95.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Brasseys Naval Annual for 1912, p. 467. The Naval Estimates of both countries for this year make provision for an increase in their active service lists, when "we should have a total personnel of 137,500 as against Germany's 66,783, giving us a preponderance of more than two to one" (Parliamentary Debate on the Defence of the Empire, reported by The Morning Post of July 27, 1912).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Navy Estimates, 1912-13. Statement of the First Lord [Cd. 6106].
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 The Ocean Empire p. 96, by Gerard Fiennes.
- ↑ "Five years are required to train a really efficient seaman, and while he is being trained he is necessarily a weak element in a fighting service."—Lord Charles Beresford.
