No fitting answers can be given, because there will be no time for reflection and deliberation.

The fact that it would be impossible to get the various additions to the fleet and the patrol services ready in time, and the consciousness that it would be useless to do any less, will tend to bring on a desperate resolve to accept the situation and let the enemy do his worst.
The actual result, however, will probably be like the result of similar situations in the past; that is, some course of action will be hastily decided on, not in the reasoned-out belief that it can accomplish much, but with the feeling that action of any kind will relieve the nervous tension of the public by giving an outlet for mental and physical exertion and will, besides, lend itself to self-encouragement, and create a feeling that proper and effective measures are being taken.
Such conditions, though on a much smaller scale, are familiar to naval officers and are suggested by the supposititious order "somebody do something"; and we frequently see people placed in situations in which they do not know what to do, and so they do--not nothing, but anything; though it would often be wiser to do nothing than to do the thing they do do.

Many of the inane remarks that people make are due to their finding themselves in situations in which they do not know what to say, but in which they feel impelled to say "something." Now what kind of "something" would be done under the stimulus of the outbreak of a war for which a country had not laid its plans?
Can any worse situation be imagined--except the situation that would follow when the enemy arrived?
The parable of the wise and foolish virgins suggests the situation, both in the foolishness of the unpreparedness and in the despair when the consequent disaster is seen approaching.
In nearly all navies and armies, until the recent enormous increase in all kinds of material took place, the work of getting a navy ready for war in personnel and material was comparatively simple.
This does not mean that it was easier then than now; because the facilities for construction, transportation, communication, and accounting were much less than now; but it does mean that the actual number of articles to be handled was much less, and the number of kinds of articles was also much less; and it also means that the various mechanical improvements, while they have facilitated construction, transportation, communication, and accounting, have done so for every nation; so that none of the competing navies have had their labors expedited or made less.

On the contrary, the very means devised and developed for expediting work is of the nature of an instrument; and in order to use that instrument successfully, one has to study it and practise with it; so that the necessity for studying and practising with the instrument has added a new and difficult procedure to those before existing.
Fifty years ago the various mechanisms of naval warfare were few, and those few simple.

In our Navy Department the work of supplying those mechanisms was divided among several bureaus, and each bureau was given the duty and the accompanying power of supplying its particular quota.