A Fleet In Being; Notes Of Two Trips With The Channel Squadron - Rudyard Kipling

[Kipling] became involved in the debate over the British response to the rise in German naval power known as the Tirpitz Plan to build a fleet to challenge the Royal Navy, publishing a series of articles in 1898 which were collected as A Fleet in Being. And as always with Kipling there is that wonderful sardonic humor and attention to the lower orders of being. - Summary by Wikipedia and david wales