nations should endeavour to gain their end of the moral subjugation
of the enemy with the infliction of the least possible permanent
injury to life and industry, for the enemy of today is the customer
of the morrow, and the ally of the future. To inflict widespread
death and destruction is to damage one’s own future prosperity, and,
by sowing the seeds of revenge, to jeopardize one’s future security.
Chemical science has provided mankind with a weapon which reduces
the necessity for killing and achieves decisive effects with far less
permanent injury than in the case of explosives. Gas may well prove
the salvation of civilization from the otherwise inevitable collapse
in case of another world war. Even with the lethal gases of the
last war, the use of which was decried as barbarous by conventional
sentiment, statistics show that the proportion of deaths to the numbers
temporarily incapacitated was far less than with the accepted weapons,
such as bullets and shells! Moreover, chemistry affords us non-lethal
gases which can overcome the hostile resistance, and spread panic for
a period long enough to reap the fruits of victory, but without the
lasting evils of mass killing or destruction of property.
Yet we still find that, in defiance of reason and history, the
governments are again striving by international legislation to prohibit
the use of gas, and to confine the blows of aircraft to the traditional
military objectives.
It is a strange reflection on the all-too-frequent lack of vision
and common sense, that the opposition to the use of gas in war comes
from an alliance between those unwonted bedfellows, the traditional
militarist and the sentimental pacifist.
The humanization of war rests not in “scraps of paper,” which nations
will always tear up if they feel that their national life is endangered
by them, but in the enlightened realization that the spread of death
and destruction endangers the victor’s own future prosperity and
reputation.
This deeper understanding of war and its goal, and consequently more
humane methods, can only come by stripping war of its professional and
pacifist catchwords, and grasping that the true national objective in
war lies in the after-war. If the civilized world is to be saved from
collapse, there is an urgent need to produce true grand strategists to
replace the colour-blind exponents of mass destruction, who can only
see “red.”
No more terrible portent for the future exists than the fact that the
militarist nations are awaking to the _destructive_ possibilities of
the new weapons, while the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who are the leaders
of _constructive_ human progress, and hence might be expected to take
longer views, refuse to think or talk about the subject, either from
war-weariness or natural antipathy to war. Like the legendary ostrich
burying its head in the sand, they seemingly hope to escape the danger
by shutting it out of sight.
Absorbed in building the Temple of Peace, they neglect to take into
account the stresses and strains the edifice may have to bear――and
then, as before in history, are surprised when their plaster and stucco
temple collapses under the rude blast of international storms.
Of these two new weapons, air supremacy is possessed by France,
chemical resources by Germany. A significant fact is that France
lacks the foundations on which to build up a great chemical plant,
whereas Germany, in her rapidly developing civil aviation, has a
potential instrument whereby to employ her chemical weapons, with
relatively slight adaptation. Thus it may not be inapt to quote
the views of a high German authority, General von Altrock, in the
_Militar-Wochenblatt_: “In wars of the future the initial hostile
attacks will be decided against the great nerve and communication
centres of the enemy’s territory, against its large cities, factory
centres, munition areas, water, gas, and light supplies; in fact,
against every life artery of the country. Discharge of poisonous
gases will become the rule since great progress has been made in the
production of poison gas. Such attacks will be carried to great depths
in rear of the actual fighting troops. Entire regions inhabited by
peaceful population will be continually threatened with extinction. The
war will frequently have the appearance of a destruction _en masse_ of
the entire civil population rather than a combat of armed men.”
The curtain is raised a little more in the new German manual _Der
Chemische Krieg_, which was ably summarized recently by the Berlin
correspondent of _The Times_. As this manual has a number of quotations
from the present writer’s views on future warfare, he proposes to
repay the compliment by quoting certain most significant remarks by
the authors of this manual: gas is termed “a vital weapon put into the
hands of the nation most highly developed in science and technology,”
and one which will “confer world importance or even world power, on
the nation which shows supreme capacity in the field”――if we did not
guess it, a study of Germany’s other post-war manuals would leave us
no doubt that the Fatherland is the country cast for this _rôle_. This
conclusion is reinforced by the comments of _The Times_ correspondent:
“The authors of this handbook declare that since the end of the war no
military question has been the field of so much research, and we may
conclude that Germany, with her highly-developed chemical industry, has
not lagged behind in this respect. ‘It is understandable,’ they say,
‘that a thick veil of secrecy obscures these preparations....’”
Of the military advantage of gas, especially for a surprise at the
outset of war, there is no question. It is the only weapon which is a
commercial product, manufactured from chemicals which are an essential
requirement of peace time industry. In secrecy of manufacture it is
unrivalled, and so can defeat the intelligence service of other powers.
All other weapons are, in part at least, destined for a definite
military purpose, and therefore their production in quantity cannot
be kept a complete secret. In speed of discharge it is necessarily
supreme because it is _continuous_, which not even the quickest firing
gun can be, and in surprise of discharge also, because it is noiseless
and, if used at night or combined with smoke, invisible. Its volume
and area of effect is infinitely greater than any projectile――the most
rapid-firing-missile-projector, the machine-gun, can only fire 600
bullets a minute, whereas the gas cylinder can discharge millions of
invisible bullets or particles in the same time; unlike any projectile
it leaves no voids unswept in its beaten zone; it requires no skill
in aiming, and is therefore unaffected by the conditions or physical
defects of the firer.
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?