Part 8

The last war was the culmination of brute force; the next will be the vindication of moral force, even in the realm of the armies. From the delusion that the armed forces themselves were the real objective in war, it was the natural sequence of ideas that the combatant troops who composed the armies should be regarded as the object to strike at.

Thus progressive butchery, politely called “attrition,” becomes the essence of war. To kill, if possible, more of the enemy troops than your own side loses, is the sum total of this military creed, which attained its tragi-comic climax on the Western front in the Great War.

The absurdity and wrong-headedness of this doctrine should surely have been apparent to any mind which attempted to think logically instead of blindly accepting inherited traditions. War is but a duel between two nations instead of two individuals. A moment’s unprejudiced reflection on the analogy of a boxing match would be sufficient to reveal the objective dictated by common sense. Only the most stupid boxer would attempt to beat his opponent by battering and bruising the latter’s flesh until at last he weakens and yields. Even if this method of attrition finally succeeds, it is probable that the victor himself will be exhausted and injured. The victorious boxer, however, has won his stake, and can afford not to worry over the period of convalescence, whereas the recovery of a nation is a slow and painful process――as the people of these Isles know to their cost.

A boxer who uses his intelligence, however, aims to strike a single decisive blow as early as possible against some vital point――the jaw or the solar plexus――which will instantly paralyse his opponent’s resistance. Thus he gains his objective without himself suffering seriously. Surely those responsible for the direction of war might be expected to use their intelligence as much as a professional pugilist?

The first gleam of light on the military horizon appeared in the closing stages of the Great War. Recent publications have revealed that in 1918 the Tank Corps General Staff put forward a scheme, originating, it is understood, with its chief, Colonel Fuller, to strike at the nerve centres of the German army instead of at its flesh and blood――the fighting troops. Reflection on the disaster of March, 1918, showed that its extent was due far more to the breakdown of command and staff control than to the collapse of the infantry resistance. A scheme was evolved to launch a fleet of light fast tanks, under cover of a general offensive, which should pass through the German lines, and, neglecting the fighting troops, aim straight for the command and communication centres in rear of the front. By the annihilation of these, the disorganization and capitulation of the combatant units was visualized――for without orders, without co-ordination, without supplies, an army is but a panic and famine-stricken mob, incapable of effective action.

This plan, adapted as the basic tactical idea for 1919, had the war lasted, heralds the dawn of scientific military thought in its grasp of the truth that even the military objective is a moral one――the paralysis of the enemy’s command and not the bodies of the actual soldiers.

“The wheel has come full circle,” for this blow at the hostile command was the method of Alexander, one of the greatest captains in all history――and who, unlike Napoleon, attained his ultimate political objective in its entirety. It was thus at Arbela that Alexander, with a small but highly trained force, manœuvred to strike through a gap at Darius, and with the flight of its chief the huge Persian army dissolved into a mob, its superior numbers but an encumbrance.

THE EVOLUTION OF “NEW MODEL” ARMIES

“Rome was not built in a day”――nor will be the armies of the “new model,” though, since the history of the material world is a tale of the replacement of the human muscles by machines, the end is inevitable. Civil developments in mechanical science have repeatedly and continuously influenced and changed the methods of warfare. The longbows of mediæval England had to give way to the musket, the “wooden walls” of Nelson’s time yielded to the ironclad, the sailing ship was replaced by the steamship. But natural conservatism and financial stringency make rapid changes in peace-time unlikely.

Thus the first stage will probably be to provide infantry with mechanical legs to carry them to the battlefield, to replace horse-drawn artillery with motor-drawn, or motor-borne guns, and to develop the tank arm to the proportion that its tactical importance as the heir of cavalry demands. With their transport no longer tied to roads and railways, such armies could well make advances of a hundred miles in the day.

A longer period must elapse before tanks swallow the older arms completely, though the absorption of these Jonahs will be hastened if the military leaders of the nations realize that the gas-weapon has come to stay, notwithstanding the paper decrees of Leagues and Conferences.

To realize this we have only to ask the question: How can the respective arms protect themselves against gas? Aircraft, by rising above it; tanks, by being air-tight and producing their own oxygen inside; infantry, cavalry, artillery, by the use of some form of respirator. A respirator is only proof against known kinds of gas; it cannot be worn for long without incapacitating its wearer from active exertion; it cannot protect the whole body, unless it be developed into a complete diver’s suit, in which movement would be almost impossible. If a man cannot move freely, he cannot fight. If a horse cannot move, what use is his rider? If the artillery-man cannot serve the gun freely and the gun is immovable, field artillery is useless. Therefore, if gas becomes a standard weapon, we are left with the tank and the aeroplane as the sole effective arms for offensive action. Only as the static defenders of the fortified bases――the land-ports――of tanks and aircraft will there be a future for infantry and artillery, the former armed with super-heavy armour-piercing machine-guns, and the latter with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.

How long even tanks will persist is a moot point. To hit so small and rapidly moving a target is not easy for the aeroplane, and if it come low, the tank can hit back. In the next lap of the immemorial race between the means of offence and protection, mobility is on the side of the aeroplane, but gravity on that of the tank――in increasing the degree of armour.

Again, though gas is the weapon which will sign the death-warrant of the traditional arms, and by which the new arms will attack the enemy nation, its very triumph will cause one more revolution of the eternal cycle.

Since both are gas-proof, the armour-piercing projectile will come back into its own for air and tank battles. Both machines also are self-contained fighting organisms, combining hitting power, mobility and protection. What present type of weapon already possesses this combination? The warship.

Thus the tactics of tank versus tank will conform to those of naval war, while overhead Tennyson’s “Airy navies grappling in the central blue” find literal and not only figurative fulfilment.

Although overland warfare will ultimately assume a close resemblance to sea fighting, the novelists’ dream of land “dreadnoughts” is unlikely of fruition. The obstacles met with on land, the benefit of using an already cleared and graduated path, such as road systems provide through and over these obstacles, the load-capacity and width of bridges, will limit the size of the landships. Even the amphibious tank does not solve the problem of getting out of a river with steep banks.

Thus a concentrated essence of fighting power, rather than bulk, will be the aim of the tank designers of the future, just as the organizers of armies will pin their faith on quality instead of quantity, turning for inspiration to Alexander Xenophon and Gustavus Adolphus in place of Clausewitz. Not “how large,” but “how good” will be the standard of to-morrow.

To sum up our deductions――The land “punch” of the future will be delivered by fleets of tanks, their communications, maintained by cross-country and air vehicles, offering no fixed and vulnerable target for an enemy blow, either on land or from the air. These quick-moving and quick-hitting forces will advance by rapid bounds into the enemy country to strike at its vitals, establishing behind them, as they progress, a chain of fortified bases, garrisoned by heavy artillery and land marines――late infantry. A proportion of land marines might also be carried in this tank fleet to be used as “landing parties” to clear fortifications and hill defences under cover of the fire from the tank fleet.

Speed, on land as in the air, will dominate the next war, transforming the battlefields of the future from squalid trench labyrinths into arenas where surprise and manœuvre will reign again, restored to life and emerging from the mausoleums of mud built by Clausewitz and his successors.

EPILOGUE

The critic may ask why this survey has been confined to weapons already known, why, in our forecast, we have not endeavoured to imitate the imaginative flights of a Jules Verne or an H. G. Wells in the past? The future may bring to fruition the sensational dreams of the novelist――discovery in bacteriological and electrical science may lead to the wars of the future being waged by means of the germs, or the green, purple, and other “death” rays, lurid in hue and effect, which form the properties of the prophetic novelist. But for a reasoned attempt to forecast the future of war we cannot rely on hypothetical discoveries of a revolutionary nature――which may prove but chimeras in the desert. For our suggestions to have a practical value, they must be based, not on the shifting sands of speculations, but on solid rock――the evolutionary development of weapons and powers already available. We appreciate that further scientific discoveries may modify our conclusions as to the means by which the moral objective is gained――but the goal itself will remain true.

It is hoped that the danger and futility of the Napoleonic doctrine of “absolute war,” and of its fungus growth――the “nation in arms,” has been demonstrated so clearly that they may be cast on the ash-heap. Let us never again confound the means with the end. The goal in war is the prosperous continuance of national policy in the years after the war, and the only true objective is the moral one of subduing the enemy’s will to resist with the least possible economic, human, and ethical loss――which implies a far-sighted choice, and blend, of the weapons most suitable for our purpose. A statue of General Sherman in Washington bears this inscription: “The legitimate object of war is a more perfect peace.” The phrase is too narrow, and warring nations reck little of legitimacy――but common sense, reinforced by bitter experience, should lead the grand strategists of the future to the wider truth that a more perfect peace is the only rational object of war, and that any military plan or act which infringes this prospect causes a bad debt on the balance sheet of victory. May the nations and their political and military chiefs remember the words of Solomon: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Future wars will be waged by weapons that are the product of peace-time industry; these weapons will be directed against the nerve centres and arteries of civil life, and if wisdom prevail, the ultimate peace will be the guiding star of the military policy and plans. Weapons, target, and aim will alike be civil. The future of war lies in the future of peace.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (italics).

――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.