In the _Century_ magazine several years ago was a paper on machine
guns and dynamite guns. As might have been expected, it opened with
a prediction by a distinguished general of the Union armies that, so
murderous have warlike weapons become, “the next war will be marked
by terrific and fearful slaughter.” This is naturally followed by
the writer’s smug and comfortable assurance that “in the extreme
mortality of modern war will be found the only hope that man can have
of even a partial cessation of war.” If this were so, let us see how
it would work. The chronological sequence of events would necessarily
(obviously, one would think) be something like this: