Chapter II: Part 2

Such are the properties of this ideal weapon, which international jurists fondly believe their parchment decrees will rule out of future war! However blind to the lessons of history, do they really believe that a nation which plans a military coup, or a “revanche,” will discard its strongest trump?

If, then, gas seems destined to replace the bullet and the shell, so equally does the aeroplane appear likely to supersede the gun as the means of projection――and, like gas, aircraft are a weapon not exclusively military, but resting on a civil basis. Their transformation from a civil to a military use is far simpler than with any of the old-established arms. This fact has a vital bearing on the present world situation, for the geographical situation of the continental countries, France and Germany in particular, lends itself to the expansion of air transport far better than that of Great Britain, and thus in any race for air supremacy the former obtain a “flying” start difficult to over-value. In the present stage of aircraft development the central position of these continental countries makes them the natural hub of Europe’s air routes. England, in contrast, is thrown back into her mediæval position, before the Age of Discovery led to the development of trans-ocean shipping――in semi-isolation on _the edge_ of the continental transport system. Though the aerial successors of Columbus have already linked the New and Old Worlds, it must still be some time before trans-ocean flying becomes a normal service. Then, and only then, will the axis of air communications again be shifted to the British Isles, as was that of sea transport by the original discovery of America.

As for the two great Pacific powers, the United States are in an excellent position for the growth of a strong civil aviation, because the vast breadth of North America places a premium on any new and speedier form of transport, whereas Japan suffers, in greater degree, the disadvantages of England’s insular and border situation, so that her air development must perforce be an artificial military growth instead of springing naturally from civil “roots.”

Moreover, these can only grow firmly and spread in an industrial soil――in the mechanical future of war supremacy will go to the nation with the greatest industrial resources.

But Americans would do well to remember that the Japanese military leaders are disciples of Clausewitz, and that one of his axioms reads: “A small state which is involved with a superior power, and foresees that each year its position will become worse,” should, if it considers war inevitable, “seize the time when the situation is furthest from the worst,” and attack. It was on this principle that Japan declared war on Russia, and _for the United States the next decade is the danger period_.

ARE ARMIES AND NAVIES OBSOLETE?

In view of the transcendent value of aircraft as a means of subduing the enemy will to resist, by striking at the moral objective, the question may well be asked: Is the air the sole medium of future warfare? That this will be the case ultimately we have no doubt, for the advantages of a weapon able to move in three dimensions over those tied to one plane of movement are surely obvious to all but the mentally blind. But we are dealing with the immediate future, and an uncertain period may elapse before aircraft can combine with their superior power of movement the radius of action, reliability and hitting power of the other weapons. In pointing out the decisiveness of an air blow at the enemy nation’s nerve system, we pre-supposed two conditions; first, a superior air force; second, a centralized objective such as a highly-developed industrial state offers. The European nations and Japan afford such a target to air attack, but not so a country as vast as the United States; until the latter develops into a more closely-knit fabric, and the radius of air action is greatly increased, an air attack against it could hardly be decisive, however locally unpleasant. Washington laid in ruins would merely provide “Main Street” with a fresh supply of small talk; New York paralysed would leave the Middle West unmoved, even the desolation of the Pacific coast would but inconvenience the “movie fans” of the nation.

Moreover, though, in Europe, an air blow would be decisive, its achievement would probably depend on one side being superior in the air, either in numbers of aircraft or by the possession of some surprise device. Where air equality existed between the rival nations, and each was as industrially and politically vulnerable, it is possible that either would hesitate to employ the air attack for fear of instant retaliation.

A boxer with a punch in either fist enjoys both a moral and a physical advantage, and the same is true of a nation that, if its initial air blow is frustrated or is lacking in the necessary margin of superiority, can bring another weapon into play.

This truth is but the translation into future grand strategy of the immemorial key to victory used by the Great Captains of War――_striking at the enemy from two directions simultaneously_, so that in trying to parry the one blow he exposes himself to the other.

Nevertheless, the continuance of an alternative weapon to the aeroplane does not mean that armies, at least, will survive in their present form. An existing pattern army has as much “punch” as a stuffed bolster――size is no criterion of hitting power.

If, however, the sea and land weapons are likely to continue until the air weapon reaches maturity, a study of the future of war would be incomplete without a discussion of their tendencies and development――and of the ways by which they may help to gain the moral objective.

THE NAVAL WEAPON

A fleet suffers one fundamental limitation on its freedom of action――it is tied to the sea. Hence it cannot strike directly at the hostile nation. Its action is either directed against the enemy’s stomach, and through that to his moral, or in conveying and serving as a floating base for troops or aircraft.

As with land warfare, the destruction of the enemy’s main fleet is often spoken of as the objective, whereas in reality this act is but a means towards it――by the destruction of the enemy’s shield the way is opened for a more effective blockade or for the landing of an army. Like land warfare, also, the knowledge that its coasts are thus rendered defenceless, may cause a nation to sue for peace rather than await inevitable starvation or invasion.

But just as the value of armies has been radically affected by the conquest of the air, so has that of surface fleets by the coming of that other new and three-dimensional weapon, the submarine. Instead of hopping over the enemy’s shield as does the aeroplane, the submarine dives under it. In the Great War a submarine blockade almost brought the supreme naval power to its knees by starvation――yet Germany never had more than 175 submarines.

The fundamental purpose of a navy is to protect a nation’s sea communications and sever those of the enemy, and as, therefore, _blockade_ is the main offensive _rôle_ of the naval weapon, it behooves us to examine the future of this means to the moral objective.

Since the war controversy has raged round the respective merits of the battleship, submarine, and naval aeroplane, as _destructive weapons_. Into this I have no intention of entering――not only because the problem demands a technical knowledge of sea warfare to which I have no pretensions, but also because the rival arguments, in their absorption with a means, overlook the end. Steering clear of the Sargasso Sea of technical values, let us rather direct our course, by the compass of grand strategy, on the true objective of the naval weapon. Nations cannot afford to stake their existence on a gamble in “futures,” and therefore until a new weapon has attained an all-round superiority to the existing ones, it would be rash to adopt it exclusively. The battleship retains the sovereignty of the _oceans_ for some time to come at least, but in the _narrow seas_ has yielded pride of place to the submarine――if the lessons of the Great War be assessed. Here is the crux of the matter.

Thus France is wise in concentrating mainly on the new weapon, whereas Great Britain and the United States, being concerned equally with ocean communications, cannot yet afford to abandon the surface-going capital ship.

The vital question of the future is how this transfer of power over the narrow seas affects the international situation――particularly that of Great Britain, which is concerned with both spheres of sea-power.

Glance for a moment at a map of Europe――it will be seen that Great Britain lies like a huge breakwater across the sea approaches to Northern Europe, with Ireland as a smaller breakwater across the approaches to Great Britain. We realize that in the Great War, Germany was in the most unfavourable position possible for blockading England’s sea communications, her submarines having first to get outside this breakwater through a narrow outlet sown with mines and closely watched, and on completion of this mission make the same hazardous return to their bases. No stronger proof of the potential menace of the submarine in future war can be found than that Germany, with so few submarines and despite such an immense handicap, sank 8,500,000 tons of shipping, and all but stopped the beat of Britain’s heart.

Contrast with this the geographical position of France, the chief submarine power of the immediate future. Her Atlantic bases lie directly opposite the sea approaches to the British Isles――in an ideal position for submarine action to block the sea arteries on which England’s life depends. Of potential significance also is the position of Ireland, an outer breakwater lying across the gateways to Great Britain, for should Ireland ever lend its harbours to an enemy as submarine bases, the odds would be hopeless.

Turn again to the Mediterranean, another long and narrow sea channel through which runs our artery with the East, and where our main naval force is now concentrated. Note that our ships, naval or mercantile, must traverse the _length_ of this channel, and worse still, have to filter through a tiny hole at each end――the straits of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal――while midway there is a narrow “waist” between Sicily and Tunis, barely ninety miles across.

Then look at the geographical position of Toulon and of the French naval ports on the North African coast, and note how the _radii_ of submarine attack intersect the long single line of British sea communication. Is it not obvious that if in a future war any Mediterranean power was numbered among Britain’s enemies, her fleet would find it difficult enough to protect itself against submarines, let alone protect merchant convoys and troop transports? When to the proved menace of submarine power is added the potential effect of aircraft attack against shipping in the narrow seas, it is time the British people awoke to the fact that, in case of such a war, the Mediterranean would be impassable, and that this important artery would have to be abandoned. Thus, as a strategical asset, the Suez Canal has lost a large part of its value in face of modern naval and air development――for in such a war we should be driven to close the Mediterranean route, and divert our imperial communications round the Cape of Good Hope.

Nor can it do any harm for our politicians and people to realize the unquestionable if unpalatable fact that the existence of this country is dependent on the good-will of France, the supreme air and submarine power commanding both the vital centres of England and our oversea communications at their most vulnerable points――that “Paris” is able to shoot at our Achilles’ heel, and has “two strings to its bow” for the purpose.

THE ARMY WEAPON

Finally, what is the future of this alternative “punch” to the air attack? No future, assuredly, unless the army limb of the body military is thoroughly overhauled and inoculated with the serum of mobility, for the present type of army is suffering from chronic rheumatoid arthritis, its joints far too stiff to deliver an effective punch. The outstanding lesson of the Great War was the powerlessness of the high commands to attain decisive successes――a condition due to three main factors. First, the unwieldy masses put into the field allowed neither opportunity nor room for manœuvre; second, these slow-moving infantry masses were too vulnerable a target to modern fire-weapons; third, their numbers imposed so great a strain on the means of supply that offensive after offensive was stultified by the breakdown of communications――the commanders of the Great War were as unhappily placed as the proverbial puppy with a tin can attached to its tail.

The years 1914–18 show the “Nation in Arms” theory carried to its climax; numbers of troops and quantity of _material_ had been the ruling ideas of the General Staffs of Europe for half a century. What was the upshot? That generalship became the slave of the monster it had created. The artist of war yielded place to the artisan, because we forgot the text preached by Marshal Saxe two centuries before, that “multitudes serve only to perplex and embarrass.” Watching it from across the Styx, Marshal Saxe can be imagined as uttering that favourite quotation of his: “War is a trade for the ignorant, a science for men of genius.”

What are the obvious deductions from the three factors we have mentioned?

The rear communications of existing armies are based on railways, the advanced communications on roads, both of which have proved inadequate to stand even the _internal_ strain of modern warfare. In the last war they suffered little _external_ interference from enemy aircraft, but in the future this is a certainty. Both these means of communication depend on fixed tracks, which cannot be varied save after a long period of labour and preparation; since they are shown on the map they are easily located and can be kept under observation from the air. If railways, because of their visibility and limited number of routes, are in themselves the more vulnerable, no more helpless target exists than long columns of slow-moving infantry on the march. A vivid picture of the chaos caused by air attack is to be found in Major-General Gathorne-Hardy’s account of the ghastly fate of the Austrian columns and transport after Vittorio Veneto in October, 1918. If they are not bombed out of existence, air-attack will at least force them to disperse and take cover so frequently as to slow up their rate of advance to a snail’s pace, while days of bombing by hostile aircraft will hardly be a tonic for their moral.

Thus the nation which continues to base its military communications on railways and roads is running for a fall. What is the alternative? The opposite method to tracked movement is trackless――by means of caterpillar track or multi-wheeled vehicles capable of quitting the roads at will on the approach of hostile aircraft, and of advancing on a wide front, instead of through a bottleneck.

If infantry, because of certain limitations on tank-action, may still survive for a time as a battle-instrument, it is the merest common sense that they should be transported to the battlefield, their 3–5 m.p.h. legs replaced by 15–25 m.p.h. mechanical tracks――not only because they may thus be kept fresh for their fighting _rôle_, but because otherwise they will never reach the battlefield at all.

The advent of aircraft has had another important consequence. Just as in the wider sphere, their power to hop over a hostile army enables them to strike direct at the political and industrial centres of the nation, so in the zone of the armies has it laid bare the life-line of the hostile army itself――its communications.

The obvious antidote to this new development is to make the communications fluid instead of rigid, and by putting the supply and transport of armies on a trackless basis, we not only revive their “punch” by endowing them with mobility, but extract much of the sting from the military form of the air attack.

Turning to the second factor, that of vulnerability _in battle_, here again a new weapon has revolutionized the methods of warfare by providing soldiers with a machine-made skin to offset the deadliness of modern fire. Not that armour is a new invention, but until the advent of the tank provided him with mechanical legs, man’s muscle-power was insufficient to move him when enclosed in an armoured shell. Navies changed long ago from muscle-power to machine-power, alike for hitting, protection, and movement. Armies had to lag behind until the invention of the motor because they could not ask the already over-burdened foot-soldier to carry armour――if he had been given it he could not have moved it. Now, however, that a means has been invented, is it not irrational to stand out against the lessons of national progress, to refuse to free the soldier’s mind and spirit――his real military assets――from the fetters imposed by his bodily limitations?

Military conservatives are prone to talk of “Men _v._ Machines,” as if they were conflicting ideals, whereas in reality neither opposition nor comparison is possible. We should not fall into the absurdity of comparing man with a locomotive or a sculptor with his tools, and mechanical weapons are but the instruments of man’s brain and spirit. The reactionary who opposes the inevitable course of evolution forgets that the question of muscle-force _versus_ machine-force was settled away back in the Stone Age when the prehistoric fighting man discovered that a flint-axe was a more potent weapon than his bare fist. Moral depends ultimately on confidence, and even the finest troops will lose their moral if they are reduced to the _rôle_ of mere human stop-butts, powerless to hit back.

The layman is apt to feel mystified by the fog of technical controversy that surrounds the merits of the various arms. To dissipate this by a breeze of common sense, let us put the simple question: How can the old-established arms combat the new――tanks and aircraft?

First, infantry――whose weapons are machine-guns, light automatics and rifles. They cannot attack the tank, because even if they had weapons that could penetrate the tank’s armour, the latter’s speed would enable it to avoid conflict at will. Similarly, infantry have no power to hit the aeroplane unless it swoops very low, whereas it can remain at a moderate height and bomb its helpless foes.

For defence against either, infantry are dependent on the help of other arms or on going to earth like rabbits――in which case their offensive value in war is _nil_.

A business which retained the aged and infirm as the bulk of its employees would soon be bankrupt; it may find use for a few as caretakers――and that is the only feasible _rôle_ for infantry in mobile warfare of the future.

It is needless to consider cavalry, for they suffer all the disabilities, save one, of infantry, and in greater degree because they offer a larger and more vulnerable target. The sole exception is that they can run away faster!

Then, with regard to field artillery――though moderately effective against the sluggish tanks of the Great War, its chances would be infinitely less against a modern tank zigzagging at over 20 m.p.h., and infinitesimal against them if launched in masses. If it cannot hit, it will be hit. In any case, its value depends on the tanks coming to meet it; its _rôle_ thus becomes purely defensive. Only by being fitted in a tank――the obvious solution――can it compel the tank to come to action, and resume its offensive _rôle_ in a war of movement.

Though the tank is not yet perfect――it is only as old as the automobile of 1902, or the aeroplane of 1910――the fact that it combines in itself the three essential elements of warfare――hitting power, protection, and mobility――makes it clearly superior in normal country to any of the existing arms, which are deficient in one, or all, of these elements. To anyone who has experienced the sense of helplessness caused by the sight of the modern tanks racing towards one at 20 m.p.h., sweeping over banks and nullahs, swinging round with amazing agility in their own length, the question arises: “Can flesh and blood, however heroic, be persuaded to face them?” It is a sight to freeze the blood of a witness with imagination to grasp the demoralizing effect if their guns and machine-guns were actually spitting forth death.

The tank has its limitations; there are certain types of ground on which it is handicapped――hills, woods, and swamps, and certain defences against which it is helpless. By taking advantage of such partially tank-proof terrain, infantry may survive for a time. But the limitations of the tank are exaggerated by the fact that its tactics have not been thought out and adapted to its qualities and limitations. Regarded as a mere prop to an arm――infantry――too helpless to look after itself, it has been frittered away in driblets or under unsuitable conditions――as in the swamps of Passchendaele.

To discover its true use let me suggest an historical parallel:

The military bulwark of the Roman Empire was its legions, for six centuries the “queen of battle,” defying all efforts to oppose them by like means. On the _9th August, 378_ A.D., on the plains of Adrianople, they met a new challenge――the cavalry of the Goths. “The Goths swept down on the flank of the Roman infantry, so tremendous was the impact that the legions were pushed together in helpless confusion.... Into this quivering mass the Goths rode, plying sword and lance against the helpless enemy.” When the sun went down that evening, it set not only on the great Roman Empire, but on the reign of infantry――the instrument and token of Roman world-power. The age of cavalry was ushered in.

Fifteen hundred years later the German army was, in turn, the traditional symbol of military power. For four years, her machine-gunners, heirs of the Roman legionaries, defied all the efforts of orthodox tactics to overthrow them.

On the _8th of August, 1918_, the German infantry legions were overrun and slaughtered by the onset of the British tanks, almost as helplessly as their forerunners at Adrianople, exactly fifteen hundred and forty years before. Let the story be epitomized in the words of the enemy, of Ludendorf himself:

“_August 8th was the black day of the German army in the history of the war._ The divisions in line allowed themselves to be completely overwhelmed. Divisional staffs were surprised in their headquarters by enemy tanks.” On the final phase of the war the verdict of Ludendorf was “mass attacks by tanks ... remained hereafter our most dangerous enemies.”

The lesson to be drawn from this historical analogy is that the tank attack is the modern substitute for the cavalry charge, the supreme value of which lay in its speed and impetus of assault, and the demoralizing effect of its furious onset. The deadliness of modern fire-weapons brought about the extinction of the cavalry charge, and with its disappearance warfare became lopsided and stagnant. The stalemates of recent campaigns are to be traced to the lack of any means of delivering and exploiting a decisive blow. If, instead of regarding cavalry as men on horseback, soldiers thought of it as _the mobile arm_, the main cause of the interminable siege warfare of the Russo-Japanese and Great Wars would be apparent. The practical view of history lies in projecting the film of the past on the blank screen of the future.

Once appreciate that tanks are not an extra arm or a mere aid to infantry but the modern form of heavy cavalry and their true military use is obvious――to be concentrated and used in as large masses as possible for a decisive blow against the Achilles’ heel of the enemy army, the communications and command centres which form its nerve system. Then not only may we see the rescue of mobility from the toils of trench-warfare, but with it the revival of generalship and the art of war, in contrast to its mere mechanics. Instead of machines threatening to become the master of men, as they actually did in 1914–18, they will give man back opportunities for the use of his art and brain, and on the battlefields of the future may be expected the triumphs of an Arbela, of quality over quantity. “It is the _Man_, not men, who count in war.” The tank assault of to-morrow is but the long-awaited re-birth of the cavalry charge, with the merely material changes that moving fire is added to shock, and that the armoured cavalry-tank replaces the vulnerable cavalry-horse. Thus, to paraphrase, “The cavalry is dead! Long live the cavalry!”

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.