Staggered by his government’s lack of readiness during the 1911 crisis when appointed several months thereafter as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill turned his attention to Britain’s vulnerabilities. His “mind was full of the dangers of war” and his heart utterly committed to making Britain, in the late Martin Gilbert’s words, “invulnerable at sea . . . Every deficiency would have to be made good, every gap filled, every contingency anticipated.”
