Chapter 11

WAR TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY

Therehas appeared in the present campaign a number of situations so different both from what was known of war in the past and from what was expected of any great modern war in West Europe that opinion upon the change is confused and bewildered. Sometimes it is thrown right out of its bearings by the novelties it witnesses. And, what is more grave, opinion is sometimes led to misjudge altogether the nature of war by these novelties.

For instance, you find people telling you that a war such as this can end in a “draw” or stalemate. They say this foolish thing simply because they are impressed by the present unexpected and apparently unprecedented phase of the war.

Or, again, people tell you vaguely that “the question of finance will end the war,” because they are bewildered by the magnitude of the figures of expense, forgetting that the only five things a nation needs in order to prosecute war are men, arms, clothing, shelter and food, and, these things being provided, the whole hotch-potch of reality and imagination which is called finance is indifferent to it.

Now, to prevent false judgments of that kind and the misleading of public opinion, there is nothing more useful than to distinguish between the things in which modern war between great forces, fought with modern weapons and by men trained to utilize their powers to the utmost, differs from and resembles the wars of the past.

Let us begin with the differences.

When you are dealing with many miles of men whose armament is not only destructive at a great distance, but also over a wide belt of ground, you have, in the first place, a vast extension of any possible defensive lines. It is in this, perhaps, that the present war is most sharply distinguished from the wars of the past; and I mean by the wars of the past the wars of no more than a generation ago.

There have been plenty of long defensive lines in the past. Generals desiring to remain entirely upon the defensive, for any reason, over an indefinite space of time (for no one can remain on the defensive for ever), have constructed from time immemorial long lines behind which their men, though very thinly spread out, could hold against the enemy.

They have been particularly led to do this since the introduction of firearms, because firearms give the individual man a wider area over which he can stop his enemy. But in every form of war, primitive or modern, these great lines have existed.

The Wall of China is one great instance of them; the Roman Wall over the North of Britain, from sea to sea, is another; and the long-fortified Roman frontier from the Rhine to the Danube was a third.

The generals of Louis XIV, in a line called by the now famous name of La Bassée, established on a smaller scale the same sort of thing for a particular campaign. There are hundreds of examples. But the characteristic novelty of the present war, and the point in which it differs from all these ancient examples, is therapiditywith which such lines are established by the great numbers now facing eachother, armed as they are by weapons of very long range.

This gives you at a glance an idea of the numbers engaged and the time occupied in some famous battles of the past. Each little figure in the above drawings represents 5000 men. It will be seen that even the Battle of Mukden is scarcely comparable in duration with the months-long contests of the present war.

Forty-eight hours’ preparation, or even less, is enough for troops to “dig themselves in” over a stretch of country which, in the maximum case of the French lines, is 300 miles in extent. Every slight advance is guaranteed by a new construction of trenches, every retirement hopes to check the enemy at another line of trenches established at the rear of the first.

Roughly speaking, half a million of men could hold one hundred miles of such a line under modern conditions, and, therefore, when the vast numbers which such a campaign as this produces are brought into the field, you can establish a line stretching across a whole continent and incapable of being turned.

That is what has been done in France during the present war. You have got trenches which, so long as they are sufficiently held in proportion to the numbers of the offensive, are impregnable, and which run from the Swiss Mountains to the North Sea.

It is possible that you may have to-morrow similar lines running from the Carpathians to the Baltic. Though this I doubt, first, because in the Eastern theatre of war Russia can produce perpetually increasing numbers to assault those lines; secondly, because the heavy artillery essential for their support cannot be present in large numbers in the East.

One may sum up, therefore, upon this particular novel feature of the present campaign and say that it is mainly due to the very large numbers engaged,coupled with the retaining power of the heavy artillery which the Germans have prepared in such high numerical superiority over their opponents. It is not a feature which you will necessarily find reproduced by any means in all the wars, even of the near future, or in the later stages of this war.

You must be able, as you retreat, to check your enemy appreciably before you can trace such a line; you must be able to hammer him badly with heavy guns stronger than his own while you are making it, and unless you are present in very great numbers you will only be able to draw it over a comparatively short line which your enemy may be able to turn by the left or the right.

Still, it may be of interest to compare the length of lines thus drawn apparently during the course of a campaign in the past with those drawn in the course of the present campaign, and in the first diagram I show the contrast. It is striking enough.

Another novel feature in which this war differs even from the Balkan War is the new value which has been given to howitzer fire, and in particular to its domination over permanent fortification. This is perhaps the most important of all the changes which this war has introduced into military art and it is worth while understanding it clearly. Its main principles are simple enough.

Mankind at war has always used devices whereby he has been able with a small number to detain the advance of a larger number. That, for instance, was the object of a castle in the Middle Ages. You built a stronghold of stone which the engines of that time could not batter down or undermine save at a verygreat expense of time, and you were certain that for every man able to shoot an arrow from behind such defences ten men or more would be needed for the work of trying to batter them down. So when you knew that your enemy would have to go through a narrow pass in the mountains, let us say, or across an important ford of a river, you built a castle which, as the military phrase goes, “commanded” that passage; that is, you devised a stronghold such that with, say, only 1000 of your men you would quite certainly hold up 10,000 of your enemy.

If your enemy passed by without taking your castle the thousand men inside could sally out and cut off his supplies as they passed down the mountain road or across the ford, and so imperil his main forces that had gone forward.

Your stronghold would never, of course, suffice to win a war—its function was purely negative. You could not attack with it; you could not destroy your enemy with it. But you couldgain timewith it. You could check your enemy in his advance while you were gathering further men to meet him, and sometimes you could even wear him out in the task of trying to reduce the stronghold.

Now the whole history of the art of war is a history of the alternate strength and weaknesses of thesepermanent fortifications; the wordpermanentmeans fortifications not of a temporary character, hurriedly set up in the field, but solidly constructed over a long space of time, and destined to permit a prolonged resistance.

DiagramI. A striking comparison of the length of lines in some past campaigns with the present. The characteristic novelty of the present war is the rapidity with which such lines are established by the great numbers now facing each other, armed as they are by weapons of very long range.

When cannon came and gunpowder for exploding mines underground, the mediæval castle of stonecould be quickly reduced. There was, therefore, a phase in which permanent fortification or permanent works were at a discount. The wars of Cromwell in this country, for instance, were fought in the middle of such a phase. The castles went down like nine-pins. But the ingenuity of man discovered a new form of defence valuable even against cannon, in the shape of scientifically constructedearthworks. The cannon ball of the day could not destroy these works, and though they could besappedandmined, that is, though tunnels could be dug in beneath them and explosives there fired to their destruction, that was a long business, and the formation of the works was carefully designed to give the garrison a powerful advantage of fire over the besiegers.

Works of this kind made the defensive strong again for more than two hundred years. Just as there used to be a stone wall surrounding a town, at intervals from which people could shoot sideways along the “curtain” or sheer wall between the towers, so now there was earthwork, that is, banks of earth backed by brick walls to hold them up, and having a ditch between the outer parapet and the inner. These earthworks were star-shaped, sending out a number of projecting angles, so that an attack launched upon any point would receive converging fire from two points of the star, and the entrances were further protected by outer works called horn works.

With the war of 1870, and even for somewhat before it, it was found that the increased range of modern artillery had destroyed the value of these star-shaped earthworks, taking the place of the old walls round a town. One could batter the place topieces with distant guns. Though the guns within the place were as strong as the guns outside, they were at this disadvantage: that they were confined within a comparatively small space which the besiegers could search by their fire, while the guns of the besiegers could not be equally well located by the gunners of the besieged within the fortress.

So the next step was to produce what has been known as theRing Fortress. That is, a series of detached forts lying three or four miles outside the inner place of stores, barracks, etc., which you wanted to defend. Each fort supporting the two others next to it on either side of this ring was thought to be impregnable, for each fort was built within range of the two nearest, and on such a model were built Toul, Verdun, Epinal, Belfort, Metz, Strassburg, Thorn, Cracow, and fifty other great modern strongholds.

The theory that these ring fortresses could hold out indefinitely was based upon the idea that the fort so far out from the fortress would keep the enemy’s guns too far away to damage the inner place of stores and garrison, and that the supporting fire of the various forts would prevent anyone getting between them. The three systems—first the stone wall, then the earthwork, then the ring fortress, are roughly expressed in the second diagram.

DiagramII. Mankind at war has always used devices whereby he has been able with a small number to detain the advance of a larger number. Some of these systems are roughly expressed above. 1. The old stone fortress or castle of the Middle Ages. 2. The wall round a town. 3. The earthworks of a fortress of the period 1620-1860. 4. The “Ring” Fortress (1860-1914)—a series of detached forts lying three or four miles outside the inner place of stores, barracks, etc., which it was desired to defend.

Well, the chief lesson, perhaps, of the present war is that these ring fortresses fall quickly to howitzer fire. Each of the individual forts can be easily reduced by howitzer fire. This is concentrated against certain of the forts, which quickly fall, and once their ring is broken the result is equivalent tothe breach in the wall of a fortress, and the whole stronghold falls. That is because in quite recent years two new factors have come in: (1) the mobile heavy howitzer; (2) the highest kinds of explosives.

DiagramIII. A howitzer is a gun with a shorter barrel than the ordinary gun, and designed not to shoot its projectile more or less straight across the earth, as an ordinary gun does, but to lob it high up so that it falls almost perpendicularly upon its target.

A howitzer is a gun with a shorter barrel than the ordinary gun (and therefore lighter in proportion to the width of the shell, and so to the amount of the explosive it can fire) and designed not to shoot its projectile more or less straight across the earth, as an ordinary gun does, but to lob it high up so that it falls more or less perpendicularly upon its target.

Thus the German 11.2-inch howitzer, of which we have heard so much in this war, has a maximum range when it is elevated to 43 degrees, or very nearly half-way between pointing flat and pointing straightup—and howitzers can be fired, of course, at a much higher angle than that if necessary.

DiagramIV. You can hide a howitzer behind a hill. The gun, though it has a longer range than the howitzer, can only get at the howitzer indirectly by firing over the point where it supposes the howitzer to be, as at A. Secondly, the howitzer can drop its shell into a comparatively narrow trench which the projectile of the gun will probably miss.

DiagramV. If you want to make your shell fall into a trench of a fortification, A, or come down exactly on the top of the shelter in a fort, B, it is obvious that your howitzer, firing from H, and lobbing a projectile along the high-angle trajectory M, will have a much better chance of hitting it than your gun G, sending a projectile further indeed but along the flatter trajectory N.

The advantage of the howitzer is two-fold.

In the first place, you can hide it behind a hill or any other form of obstacle or screen, as it shoots right up in the air. A gun which fires more or less flat along the earth cannot get at it.

The gun, though it has a longer range than the howitzer, can only get at the howitzer indirectly by firing over the point where it supposes the howitzer to be, as at A in Diagram IV, and so timing the fuse that the shell bursts exactly there.

Now, that is a difficult operation, both because it is difficult to spot a machine which you cannot see, and though modern time fuses are very accurate, they cannot, of course, be accurate to a yard.

Secondly, the howitzer can drop its shell into a comparatively narrow trench, which the projectile of a gun with its flat trajectory will probably miss. If you want to make your shell fall into a trench of a fortification or come down exactly on the top of the shelter in a fort, as at A, the trench in the fifth diagram, or at B, the shelter, it is obvious that your howitzer firing from H, and lobbing a projectile along the high-angle trajectory M, will have a much better chance of hitting it than your gun G, sending a projectile further, indeed, but along the flatter trajectory N.

Of course, another howitzer within the fortifications could, in theory, lob a shell of its own over the hill and hit the besieging howitzer, but in practice it is very easy for the besieging howitzer to find out exactly where the vulnerable points of the fortressare—its trenches and its shelter and magazine—and very difficult for the people in the fortress to find out where the howitzer outside is. Its place is marked upon no map, and it can move about, whereas the fortress is fixed.

DiagramVI. The fort on an elevation at A, and confined within a narrow space, is a target for howitzers placed anywhere behind hills at, say, four miles off—as at B-B, C-C, D-D. It is difficult enough for the fort to find out where the howitzer fires from in any case; furthermore, the howitzer can shift its position anywhere along the lines B-B, C-C, and D-D.

Look, for instance, at Diagram VI.

The fort on an elevation at A, and confined within a narrow space, is a target for howitzers placed anywhere behind hills at, say, four miles off, as at B-B, C-C, D-D. It is difficult enough for the fort to find out where the howitzer fires from in any case, and even when it has spotted this the howitzer can move anywhere along the lines B-B, C-C, or D-D, and shift its position.

Further, be it remembered that under quite modern conditions the accuracy of the howitzer fire against the fort can be checked by aeroplanes circulating above the fort, whereas the fort is a poor starting-place for corresponding aeroplanes to discover the howitzer.

But while the howitzer has this advantage, it has the grave 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 andmore, 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 oftroops 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 ofmoral.

Ultimately, all Europeans have much the same potentialmoral. Different types of drill and different experiences in war, a different choice of leaders and the rest of it produce, however, differentkinds of moral; different excellencies and weaknesses. Now in this department much the most remarkable general discovery in the war has beenthe 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.

DiagramVII. 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.

DiagramVIII. 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 secondsystem 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 inbothits conceptions. The Germans, thanks to their great courage and excellent discipline,havebeen 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.

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