The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

The nights were growing longer and colder, and the leaves were falling from the trees, but so far nothing of a particularly cheerful nature had come through from the front, where the French and the contemptible little British army were struggling against odds far greater and more overwhelming than anyone in England realised. It was little that was permitted to pass the firing line in those early days, and the censorship of the Boer War was as nothing to that which was now in force. Everybody knew, of course, that Germany was ready at the very outset, but few people outside official circles properly appreciated what that really meant.

Only a few weeks before, the mere suggestion of trouble with Germany was scouted, except by a few who were looked upon as scaremongers and lunatics, for they were as so many voices calling in the wilderness. It was almost impossible to grasp that at this early stage of the proceedings Germany had poured over two millions of the flower of her manhood into Belgium and France. There were those, of course, who took a light-hearted view of the whole proceeding, and confidently prophesied that Germany would be a beaten foe by Christmas at the latest. These were soldiers on paper, armchair strategists who quoted comfortable documents from amateur critics who had proved to their own satisfaction over and over again that Germany could not last more than three months after the British Navy had made her command of the seas secure.