Chapter I: Preface: BY

Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir David Beatty, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., etc.

In acceding to the request to write a Preface for this volume I am moved by the paramount need that all the budding citizens of our great Empire should be thoroughly acquainted with the part the Navy has played in building up the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

Colonel Wood has endeavored to make plain, in a stirring and attractive manner, the value of Britain's Sea-Power. To read his _Flag and Fleet_ will ensure that the lessons of centuries of war will be learnt, and that the most important lesson of them all is this--that, as an empire, we came into being by the Sea, and that we cannot exist without the Sea.

DAVID BEATTY,

2nd of June, 1919.