How Sailors Fight

For a little holiday reading I am reading 'How Sailors Fight' by John Blake. I was quite pleased that it described the 12-pounder as "perhaps for it's size the finest gun of the Navy" since I am planning a project with one this year, more of which later. One thing that is surprising me from a modern perspective was that there has been absolutely no mention of the growing power of Imperial Germany. The book was published in 1901 so only 13 years later Germany would become the British Empire's enemy in the largest war up until that point. All comparisons against potential threats are against France, which was to be on our side during that war. It was not until after 'The Riddle of the Sands' was published in 1903 that the power, and possible danger, of Germany would enter popular consciousness. The author event went so far as to imagine fictional engagements against various enemies to illustrate the points that he was trying to make; such as pitting the newly launched HMS Drake against the French armoured cruisers Montcalm and Admiral Gueydon in order to help with his argument that larger armoured cruisers were better fighting ship's than smaller ones. However no such fictional engagements were created against German ships, the ones the Royal Navy was next going to fight in reality.