chance-an

Updated: May 9, 2025

That a small country with a weak army should have been able to gather to herself the most desirable regions of the earth, and to gather them at the expense of the greatest military Powers, is a paradox to which such Powers find it hard to be reconciled. The phenomenon seemed always a matter of chance-an accident without any foundation in the essential constants of war.

Sir Julian Stafford Corbett - Some Principles of Maritime Strategy