"The war which followed the French Revolution lasted, with two short intermissions, for more than 23 years and it has been no easy task to compress the four main threads of the story--naval, military, economic and diplomatic--into the space available. Inevitably this book must deal primarily with strategy, with the broad sweep of campaigns rather than the details of individual battles, but since strategy is meaningless unless converted into victory or defeat--naval, military, economic and diplomatic--by tactic, I have tried to give examples of the tactics used at points where they are significant for the narative as a whole."--Page 1.