disadvantage of not having anything like the same range as the gun,
size for size. For a great many years it has been known that the
howitzer has the advantage I have named. But, in spite of that,
permanent fortification was built and could stand, for it was
impossible to move howitzers of more than a certain small size.
The explosives in those small shells did very great damage, but
the fortress could, with its very heavy guns, keep the enemy out
of range. But when large, and at the same time mobile howitzers
were constructed which, though they fired shells of a quarter of a
ton and more, could go along almost over any ground and be fired
from almost anywhere, and moved at comparatively short notice from
one place to another, it was another matter. The howitzer became
dangerous to the fortress. When to this was added the new power of
the high explosives, it became fatal to the fortress.
To-day the 11-inch howitzer, with a range of about six miles,
capable of hiding behind any elevation and not to be discovered by
any gun within the fortress, and, further, capable of being moved
at a moment’s notice if it is discovered, has the fortress at its
mercy. Air reconnaissance directs the fire, and great masses of high
explosives can be dropped, without serious danger to the besieger,
upon the fortified permanent points, which are unable to elude great
shells of high explosive once the range has been found.
Another development of the present war, and somewhat an unexpected
one, has been the effect of the machine-gun, and this has depended
as much upon the new German way of handling it behind a screen of
infantry, which opened to give the machine-gun play, as to any other
cause.
The fourth most obvious, and perhaps most striking change is, of
course, the use of aircraft, and here one or two points should be
noticed which are not always sufficiently emphasized. In the first
place, the use of aircraft for scouting has given, upon the whole,
more than was expected of it. It prevents the great concentration of
troops unknown to the enemy at particular points on a line save in
one important exception, which is the movement of troops by night
over railways, and, indeed, this large strategical use of railways,
especially in night movements, in the present war, is not the least
of the novelties which it has discovered. But, on the other hand,
aircraft has reintroduced the importance of weather in a campaign,
and to some extent the importance of the season. When you doubtfully
discovered your enemy’s movements by “feeling” him with cavalry
or gathering information from spies and prisoners, it made little
difference whether the wind was high or low or whether you were in
summer or in winter. But the airman can only work usefully by day,
and in bad weather or very strong gales he cannot fly, which means
that unexpected attack is to be dreaded more than ever by night, and
that for the first time in many centuries the wind has again come to
make a difference, as it did against the missile of the bow and arrow.
There are a great many other novel developments which this war has
discovered, but these are, I think, the chief. It is advisable not
only to discover such novelties, but also the permanent features,
which even modern machinery and modern numbers have not changed. Of
these you have first the elementary feature of _moral_.
Ultimately, all Europeans have much the same potential _moral_.
Different types of drill and different experiences in war, a
different choice of leaders and the rest of it produce, however,
different _kinds of moral_; different excellencies and weaknesses.
Now in this department much the most remarkable general discovery
in the war has been the endurance and steadiness under loss of
conscript soldiers.
It had always been said during the long peace that modern conscript
short-service soldiers would never stand the losses their fathers
had stood in the days of professional armies, or longer service, or
prolonged campaigns such as those of the Napoleonic wars. But to this
theory the Manchurian campaign gave a sufficient answer if men would
only have heeded it; the Balkan War a still stronger one, while the
present war leaves no doubt upon the matter.
The short-service conscript army has in this matter done better than
anything that was known in the past. Of particular reasons perhaps
the most interesting and unexpected has been the double surprise in
the German use of close formation. It was always taken for granted,
both by the German school and by their opponents, that close
formation, if it could be used in the field at all, would, by its
rapidity and weight, carry everything before it.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM VII. You have here 1000 men ready to attack.
If they attack in long open waves of men as at A-A, it takes them a
long time to spread out, and when they are spread out the effect of
their shock is not overwhelming.]
You have in Diagram VII a thousand men ready to attack. If they
attack in long open waves of men as at A-A, it takes them a long time
to spread out, and when they are spread out the effect of their shock
is not overwhelming. They can only succeed by wave following wave.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM VIII. If your 1000 men attack in denser bodies
as at B-B, they can be launched much more quickly, and the effect of
their shock when they come on is much greater.]
If they attack in denser bodies (Diagram VIII), as at B-B, they can
be launched much more quickly, and the effect of their shock when
they come on is much greater; it is, to use the German’s own term,
the effect of a swarm.
This seemed obvious, but the critics of the second system of close
or swarm formation always said that, though they admitted its
enormous power if it could be used at all, it could not be used
because its losses would be so enormous against modern firearms.
Your spread-out line, as at A-A, offered but a small target, and the
number of men hit during an assault would be far less than the number
hit in the assault of such bodies as B-B, which presented a full
target of dense masses.
Well, in the event, that criticism proved wrong in _both_ its
conceptions. The Germans, thanks to their great courage and excellent
discipline, _have_ been able to use close formations. The immense
losses these occasion have not prevented their continuous presence
in the field, but, contrary to all expectations, they have not, as a
rule, got home. In other words, they have, in the main, failed in the
very object for which the heavy sacrifice they entail was permitted.
Another unexpected thing in which this war has warranted the old
conception of arms is the exactitude of provision. Everybody thought
that there would be a great novelty in this respect, and that the
provisioning of so many men might break down, or, at any rate, hamper
their mobility. So far from this being the case, the new great armies
of this modern war have been better and more regularly provisioned
than were the armies of the past, and this is particularly true upon
the side of the Allies, even in the case of that astonishing march of
three million of Russians across Poland with the roads in front of
them destroyed and the railway useless.
WHAT TO BELIEVE IN WAR NEWS
_Showing how the reports in the Press should be selected and
compared, so as to arrive at a just estimate of the true position of
affairs._
WHAT TO BELIEVE IN WAR NEWS
The other day there came a message to London from Italy, solemnly
delivered in printer’s ink and repeated in nearly every newspaper,
that the town of Cracow was invested, that the bombardment had begun,
and that part of the city was in flames.
Cracow is the key of Silesia, and Silesia is the Lancashire of
Prussia. The successful investment of Cracow would certainly bring
the war to its last phase, and that phase one bringing rapid victory
to the Allies.
But Cracow was not invested; no one had bombarded it. The whole thing
was fantastic nonsense.
So much for one particular newspaper report, which had nothing to
distinguish it from other telegrams and news, and which millions of
people must have read and believed.
Every one of the readers of these lines will be able to recall other
instances of the same kind. I have before me as I write extract after
extract of that sort. In one, Roulers has been retaken; in another,
Lille is reoccupied; in another (a much earlier one), the Germans are
at Pont Oise.
Sometimes these accounts appear in long and detailed descriptions
proceeding from the pens of men who are fairly well known in Fleet
Street, and who have the courage to sign their names.
There has, perhaps, never been a great public occasion in regard to
which it was more necessary that men should form a sound judgment,
and yet there has certainly not been one in our time upon which the
materials for such a judgment have been more confused.
The importance of a sound public judgment upon the progress of the
war is not always clearly appreciated. It depends upon truths which
many men have forgotten, and upon certain political forces which,
in the ordinary rush and tumble of professional politics, are quite
forgotten. Let me recall those truths and those forces.
The truths are these: that no Government can effectively exercise
its power save upon the basis of public opinion. A Government can
exercise its power over a conquered province in spite of public
opinion, but it cannot work, save for a short time and at an enormous
cost in friction, counter to the opinion of those with whom it is
concerned as citizens and supporters. By which I do not mean that
party politicians cannot act thus in peace, and upon unimportant
matters. I mean that no kind of Government has ever been able to act
thus in a crisis.
It is also wise to keep the mass of people in ignorance of disasters
that may be immediately repaired, or of follies or even vices in
government which may be redressed before they become dangerous.
It is always absolutely wise to prevent the enemy in time of war from
learning things which would be an aid to him. That is the reason
why a strict censorship in time of war is not only useful, but
essentially and drastically necessary. But though public opinion,
even in time of peace, is only in part informed, and though in time
of war it may be very insufficiently informed, yet upon it and with
it you govern. Without it or against it in time of war you cannot
govern.
Now if during the course of a great war men come quite to misjudge
its very nature, the task of the Government would be strained
some time or other in the future to breaking point. False news,
too readily credited, does not leave people merely insufficiently
informed, conscious of their ignorance, and merely grumbling because
they cannot learn more, it has the positive effect of putting them
into the wrong frame of mind, of making them support what they should
not support, and neglect what they should not neglect.
Unfortunately, public authority, which possesses and rightfully
exercises so much power in the way of censorship--that is, in the
way of limiting information--has little power to correct false
information. The Censor receives a message, saying that at the
expense of heavy loss General So-and-So’s brigade, composed of the
Downshires and the Blankshires, repelled the enemy upon such-and-such
a front, but that three hundred men are missing from the brigade at
the end of the action. If he allows this piece of news to go through
at all he must even so refuse to allow any mention of the names
of the regiments, of their strength, of the place where they were
fighting, and the numbers of those who are missing.
Why must the Censor act thus? Because this information would be of
the utmost value to the enemy. The enemy, remember, does not ever
quite know what is in front of him. Indeed, the whole of military
history consists in the story of men who are successful because they
can gauge better than other men the forces which they have to meet.
Now if you let him know that on such-and-such an occasion the force
that he met upon such-and-such a front was a brigade of infantry, and
if you let him know its composition, and if you do this kind of thing
with regard to the army in general, you end by letting him know two
things which he particularly wants to know, and which it is all your
duty to prevent him knowing. You let him know the size of the force
in front of him, and you let him know its composition.
Similar reasons make the Censor hide from the enemy the number of men
missing. The enemy knows if he has taken in prisoners wounded and
unwounded two hundred and fifty men, and, for all he knows, that is,
excepting the dead, your total loss; but if you publish the fact that
you have lost a thousand men, he is accurately informed of a weakness
in your present disposition, which he otherwise would not suspect.
All this action of the Censor is as wise as it is necessary, but in
the face of false news he is in another position. In the first place,
it is difficult for him to judge it (unless, of course, it concerns
our own particular forces). In the second place, it may not concern
matters which the enemy can possibly ignore. For instance, in this
example of the supposed investment of Cracow. The Russians were
certainly approaching the place. The news might conceivably be true.
If it were true, the enemy would already be amply acquainted with it,
and it would be of a nature not to aid him, but to discourage him.
But the news was, in fact, untrue, and, being untrue, its publication
did not a little harm.
Now, how are we to counter this danger? How is the plain man to
distinguish in his news of the war what is true from what is false,
and so arrive at a sound opinion? After some months of study in
connexion with my work upon the three campaigns, I may be able to
suggest certain ways in which such a position should be approached.
In the first place, the bases of all sound opinion are the official
communiqués read with the aid of a map.
When I say “the official communiqués” I do not mean those of the
British Government alone, nor even of the Allies alone, but of _all_
the belligerents. You must read impartially the communiqués of the
Austro-Hungarian and of the German Governments together with those
of the British Government and its Allies, or you will certainly miss
the truth. By which statement I do not mean that each Government
is equally accurate, still less equally full in its relation; but
that, unless you compare all the statements of this sort, you will
have most imperfect evidence; just as you would have very imperfect
evidence in a court of law if you only listened to the prosecution
and refused to listen to the defence. Now, these official communiqués
have certain things in common by whatever Government they are issued.
There are certain features in them which you will always find
although they come from natures as different as those of a Prussian
staff officer and a Serbian patriot.
These common features we may tabulate thus:
(_a_) Places named as occupied by the forces of the
Government in question are really occupied. To invent the
occupation of a town or point not in one’s own hands would
serve no purpose. It would not deceive the enemy and it
would not long support opinion at home. Thus, when Lodz was
reported occupied by the Germans in the middle of December,
all careful students of the war knew perfectly well that
the news was true.
(_b_) Numbers, when they are quoted in connexion with a
really ascertainable fact, and with regard to a precise
and concrete circumstance, are nearly always reliable;
though their significance differs, as I shall show in
a moment, very greatly according to the way they are
treated. Thus, if a Government says, “in such-and-such a
place or on such-and-such a day we took three thousand
prisoners,” it is presumably telling the truth, for the
enemy who has lost those prisoners knows it as well as
they do. But estimates of what has happened in the way of
numbers, where the Government issuing the estimate can have
no direct knowledge, are quite another matter. These are
only gathered from prisoners or from spies, and are often
ridiculously wrong.
(_c_) All official communiqués of whatever Government
conceal reverses, save in minor points. They are wise to do
this because there is no need to tell the enemy more than
he may know of his own success. Reverses are not actually
denied. They are omitted. Witness all omission of Lemberg
from Austrian or German communiqués and, until somewhat
late, of Tannenberg in Russian, of Metz in French official
accounts.
Those are the three points which all the official communiqués have
in common, and by bearing them well in mind we can often frame
an accurate picture, in spite of the apparent contradiction and
confusion which the reading of several communiqués one after the
other produces.
For instance, the Germans are trying to cross the Bzura River
according to the Russian communiqué of Saturday. Next Wednesday
the Russian communiqué says, “Two attempts to cross the Bzura at
such-and-such places were repelled”; while the German communication
says, “Our troops succeeded in crossing the Bzura River at
such-and-such a village and established themselves upon the right
bank.” In such a case the reader will be wise to believe the German
communiqué and to take it for granted that while the Russians have
repelled certain other attempts of the enemy to cross, this attempt
has succeeded. But if the Germans go on to say, “The Russians retired
after suffering losses which cannot have been less than twenty
thousand,” that is no news at all. It is obviously conjecture.
The various Governments issuing the communiqués have acquired certain
habits in them which are worth noting if one is attempting to get
at an accurate view of the war, and these habits may be briefly
described as follows:
The British Government publishes short notes of advances made or of
positions maintained, but very rarely refers to the losing of ground.
It publishes casualty lists, which are, of course, not complete till
very long after the events wherein the casualties were incurred.
It supplements the short communiqués, and this by a more or less
expanded narrative written by an official deputed for that purpose
and giving accounts, often graphic, but necessarily of no military
value; of no value, that is, for following the campaign. For if these
narratives were of that kind the object of the censorship would be
defeated.
The Belgian Government at the beginning of the war allowed very full
accounts to go through and permitted the presence of correspondents
at the front itself. That phase is now over and does not immediately
concern us.
The French Government is by far the most reticent. It occasionally
mentions the capture of a colour, but it publishes no casualty lists,
no account of the field guns taken by French troops, and only now
and then hints at the number of prisoners. It is, however, minutely
accurate and even detailed in helping us to locate the fluctuations
of the front, and by the aid of the French communiqués we can follow
the war upon the map better than by the aid of any other. In its
control of the Press the French General Staff is absolute. There has
been nothing like it before, and it has been perfectly successful.
You will see whole columns cut out of the newspapers in France and
left blank, so certain are the military authorities of that country
that the most vigorous censorship is vital to modern war. There
is lastly to be noted in connexion with the French communiqués,
especially after the first two months of the campaign, a remarkable
frankness with regard to the occasional giving of ground by their
own troops. The theory is that the enemy will know this in any case,
and that as the position is secure, details of the sort though
adverse, lend strength to the general narrative. In all this it must
be remembered, of course, that the French Government, and, at this
moment, the French Army, is far more powerful than any newspaper
proprietor or other capitalist, and it is well for any nation at war
to be able to say that.
The Russian Government is accurate, and, if anything, a little too
terse in what it communicates to the public, but its censorship is
far less strict than that of the French or even the English. Thus
during the fighting round Lodz in defence of Warsaw at the beginning
of December, correspondents from Petrograd were allowed to telegraph
the most flamboyant descriptions of an immediately approaching German
retreat which never took place. But, I repeat, the official Russian
news is sober and restrained and accurate to a fault.
When we turn to the enemy’s communiqués, we note first that the
Austro-Hungarians are rare, insufficient, and confused. They are of
little service, and may almost be neglected. But the German ones are
numerous, extended and precise, and it is our particular business
to judge them accurately if we are to understand the war, for when
or if they tell the truth it is from them that we learn what would
otherwise be hidden.
Well, in my judgment, these official German communiqués are in
the main remarkably exact, and I believe it is possible to say why
they are so exact. The German General Staff makes war in a purely
mechanical fashion. It gravely exaggerates, as do all modern North
Germans, the calculable element in human affairs. It is what used to
be called “scientific.” It is obvious that if you get a reputation
for exactitude your falsehood, where it pays you to tell the
falsehood, will be the more likely to work. The remarkable general
accuracy of the official German communiqués cannot be due to any
other object. It cannot be due to a mere love of truth, for the same
Government deliberately circulates to its own provincial Press and
to certain neutrals stories which cannot in the nature of things
be true. Nor is this inaccuracy the result either of haste or of
stupidity, it is very intelligent and obviously deliberate.
When, therefore, a German communiqué tells an untruth, that untruth
is deliberate and upon an effective scale, and we have to consider
what object it has, if we are to understand the news. We may take it
that the object is nearly always domestic and political. Remember
that these official German falsehoods, countersigned by the General
Staff and the Government, are as rare as they are solid. They do not
slip in. They are not vague or led up to by doubtful phrases.
Let me take two of them. Scarborough was officially described as a
fortified port, like Sheerness or Cherbourg. That takes one’s breath
away. But monstrous as it is, it is not childish, because it was
intended to give to the public that read it at home a certain effect
which was, in fact, produced.
So successfully was that effect produced that a competent military
critic in the German Press, writing the day after, had already got
the idea that Scarborough was the most important naval base upon the
East Coast. We must remember when we read such things that very few
educated men out of a thousand in our own country could give the
names of the fortified naval bases upon, say, the Adriatic, or even
the Atlantic coast of France.
Another example of the same thing in a rather different line is
the illumination of Berlin, the giving of a holiday to the school
children and the official proclamation of a great and decisive
victory in Poland during the course of the second battle for Warsaw,
an action which had already lasted a fortnight, which was destined
to last for many more days, and which remained at that time utterly
undecided.
According to fairly reliable accounts of what was passing in Berlin
at the moment, the Government was under some necessity of acting thus
because the beginning of popular unrest had appeared. But whatever
the cause, my point is that these German inaccuracies when they
occur, which is rarely, are easily distinguishable. They stand out
from the rest of the sober narrative by their conspicuous nonsense.
They do not disturb the judgment of a careful reader. They should not
prevent our continuing to collate most closely German statements in
detail with those of the Allies, if we wish to understand the war.