 The next day this turned out to be the general opinion of the intelligent press. It is curious how plausible an argument it is, even today, when we know what came next. How could things turn out so completely different? Perhaps it was just because we were all so certain that they could not do so, and relied on that with far too much confidence. So we neglected to consider that it might, if worse came to worse, be necessary to prevent the disaster from happening.