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Title: Paris
or the future of war
Author: B. H. Liddell Hart
Release date: October 23, 2024 [eBook #74631]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: E. P. Dutton & Company
Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARIS ***
PARIS
TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW SERIES
_DÆDALUS, or Science and the Future_
By J. B. S. Haldane
_ICARUS, or The Future of Science_
By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
_THE MONGOL IN OUR MIDST_
By F. G. Crookshank, M.D. _Fully Illustrated_
_WIRELESS POSSIBILITIES_
By Prof. A. M. Low. _With four Diagrams_
_NARCISSUS, An Anatomy of Clothes_
By Gerald Heard. _Illustrated_
_TANTALUS, or The Future of Man_
By F. C. S. Schiller
_THE PASSING OF THE PHANTOMS_
By Prof. C. J. Patten, M.A., M.D., Sc.D., F.R.A.I.
_CALLINICUS, A Defence of Chemical Warfare_
By J. B. S. Haldane
_QUO VADIMUS? Some Glimpses of the Future_
By E. E. Fournier d’Albe, D.Sc., F.Inst.P.
_THE CONQUEST OF CANCER_
By H. W. S. Wright, M.S., F.R.C.S.
_HYPATIA, or Woman and Knowledge_
By Dora Russell (The Hon. Mrs. Bertrand Russell)
_LYSISTRATA, or Woman’s Future and Future Woman_
By A. M. Ludovici
_WHAT I BELIEVE_
By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.
_PERSEUS, or Of Dragons_
By H. F. Scott Stokes, M.A.
_THE FUTURE OF SEX_
By Rebecca West
_THE EVOCATION OF GENIUS_
By Alan Porter
_AESCULAPIUS, or Disease and The Man_
By F. G. Crookshank, M.D.
_PROTEUS, or The Future of Intelligence_
By Vernon Lee
_THAMYRIS, or Is there a Future for Poetry?_
By R. C. Trevelyan
_PROMETHEUS, or Biology and the Advancement of Man_
By H. S. Jennings
_PARIS, or The Future of War_
By Captain B. H. Liddell Hart
_Other Volumes in Preparation_
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
PARIS
OR
The Future of War
BY
CAPT. B. H. LIDDELL HART
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright 1925
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE FUTURE OF WAR 1
THE ORIGINS OF THE FALSE OBJECTIVE 10
PERMANENT NATIONAL OBJECTS 18
THE NATIONAL OBJECTIVE IN WAR 19
HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF THE MORAL OBJECTIVE 23
THE MEANS TO THE MORAL OBJECTIVE 27
THE AIR WEAPON 37
OBJECTIONS TO THE AIR-ATTACK 43
ARE ARMIES AND NAVIES OBSOLETE? 53
THE NAVAL WEAPON 56
THE ARMY WEAPON 62
THE EVOLUTION OF “NEW MODEL” ARMIES 78
EPILOGUE 84
PARIS
THE FUTURE OF WAR
It is no purpose of this little book to discuss whether a repetition
of war is likely or unlikely, or to speculate on the dawn of universal
peace. The writer prefers to take his stand on universal experience, as
contained in history, observing that the path of history is strewn with
idealistic tombstones――the Holy Alliance, the mid-Victorian Manchester
School, the Hague Conventions. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was to
inaugurate a Golden Age, to be the concrete symbol of the millennium,
yet within a decade the four chief Powers in Europe had reconverted
their ploughshares into swords, and the North American continent was
torn by a fratricidal conflict. To abolish war we must remove its
cause, which lies in the imperfections of human nature. The way to
“peace on earth” is by the progressive and general growth of “good-will
towards men,” by a transformation of the spirit of man instead of
a futile attempt to bind his fists――cords from which he can easily
break free, if so disposed. This changed spirit must be world-wide,
for peace-loving nations, especially if prosperous and possessed of
rich territory who abandon their defences, invite and indeed provoke
aggression as much as a flock of well-nourished sheep with a lean and
hungry wolf in the fold. In the seventeenth century the Protestant
states of North Germany complaining that the expense of maintaining
armed forces exceeded the possible benefit of their protection, prated
thus――“let us behave with justice to all men, and all men will behave
with justice towards us.” They speedily found the fallacy of this faith
in an imperfect world, their protests of neutrality an inadequate
shield against the rapacity of their neighbours.
In the years immediately following the Great War, idealists thought to
cure the ills of the body politic, as well as human, by a monotonous
repetition of the jingle, “Day by day, and in every way, we are getting
better and better,” but disillusionment came, and the peoples of the
world are realizing that international Couéism is as futile to cure
real disease as its pseudo-medical counterpart.
Regarding war as a hard fact, as a doctor called in to a sick patient
views disease, our concern here is simply with the course of the
malady, our object being to gauge its future tendencies, in order, if
possible, to limit its ravages and by scientific treatment ensure the
speedy and complete recovery of the patient. As diagnosis comes before
treatment, the first step is to examine the patient, estimate the
gravity of his condition, and discover the seat of the trouble.
The Great War caused the direct sacrifice of eight million lives,
to which the British Isles alone contributed three-quarters of a
million. So ineffectual was the treatment prescribed by the military
practitioners who were called in that the illness took over four years
to run its course, during which the financial temperature mounted
daily, until for this country alone it reached a cost of £8,000,000 a
day. Our total war expenditure was nearly ten thousand million pounds;
our National Debt has been increased tenfold. Moreover, these long
years of strain and want so impaired the physical health of the peoples
that they fell an easy prey to epidemic diseases, and the influenza
scourge of 1918 and 1919 cost, among the civilian population of the
world, more than twice as many lives as were lost in battle.
It is surely clear that any further wars conducted on similar
methods must mean the breakdown of Western civilization. Is there an
alternative? To answer this question the obvious course is to ascertain
what were the foundations on which the military leaders of the Great
War built their doctrine of war, and then to examine these in the light
of reason and experience――as embodied in history. The traditional
military mind is notoriously sensitive to any breath of criticism,
and any attempt to tear aside the veil of its _mystery_ is apt to be
greeted by the cry of “sacrilege.” Occasionally some daring soldier
has done so――and has paid the penalty for exposing to lay eyes the
emptiness of the shrine. Thus Marshal Saxe in his eighteenth-century
_Reveries_ on the art of war, declared that “custom and prejudice
confirmed by ignorance are its sole foundation and support,” for which
temerity Carlyle, the disciple and mouthpiece of the Frederician
dogmas, poured scorn on his book as “a strange military farrago,
dictated, as I should think, under opium.”
Similarly, a generation before the Great War, Monsieur Bloch, the
civilian banker of Warsaw, forecast its nature with extraordinary
prescience, only to be ridiculed by the General Staffs of Europe. Yet
the stalemate that he predicted would arise from the clash of “nations
in arms” came true――with the sole difference that he underestimated
the blind obstinacy of the leaders and the passivity of the led in
continuing for four more years to run their heads against a brick wall.
Now, however, in these post-war years of disillusionment, is the
time to take stock of the exorbitant cost of the war in lives and
money, of the moral and economic exhaustion that is its fruit. Though
professional experience in any department of life is the way to
executive skill, concentration on technical problems has a notorious
tendency to narrow the vision. Hence, while paying tribute to the
professional ability shown in the later phases of the 1918 campaign, we
are justified, standing amid the _débris_, in questioning the strategic
aim and direction of the war.
What was the objective of the Allies’ strategy? The memoirs and
despatches of the responsible military leaders reveal that it was the
destruction of the enemy’s armed forces in the main theatre of war.
As the proverb tells us, it is no use crying over spilt milk, nor even
over spilt blood and money――the price for this empty triumph has been
paid by the ordinary citizens of the nations, yoked like “dumb, driven
oxen” to the chariot of Mars.
What we are concerned with is the future, and it is the worst of
omens that the orthodox military school, still generally in power as
the advisers of governments, cling obstinately to this dogma, blind
apparently to the futility of the Great War, both in its strategy
and its fruits. Of these military Bourbons, restored to the seats
of authority in most capitals, the saying may be echoed: “They have
learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”――if one may judge by the post-war
manuals of the various countries, and the utterances of generals and
admirals.
New weapons would seem to be regarded merely as an additional tap
through which the bath of blood can be filled all the sooner. Not long
ago, in _The Times_, a distinguished admiral argued that as “the first
and greatest principle of war” was the destruction of the armed forces
of the enemy, the only correct objective for aircraft in war must be
the enemy air-force.
Thus in this new element, the air, is to be reincarnated the Napoleonic
theory――for the doctrine on which the last war was fought, and the next
one will be if wisdom does not prevail, is the disastrous legacy of
the Corsican vampire, who drained the blood of Europe a century back.
From 1870 to 1918 the General Staffs of the Powers were obsessed with
the Napoleonic legend; instead of reconnoitring the future in the light
of universal history they were purely looking backward on a military
Sodom and Gomorrah, until, like Lot’s wife, they and their doctrines
became petrified.
What is the tenor of this doctrine? First, that there is only one true
objective in war――“the _destruction_ of the enemy’s main forces on the
battlefield.” Even the most hair-splitting partisan of the orthodox
school cannot dispute this statement without throwing overboard all the
textbooks and regulations produced by the General Staffs of Europe and
America for generations past. Second, that the means of gaining this
objective is to pile up greater numbers than the enemy. Obviously the
surest way to achieve this is to call up and put into the field the
whole manhood of a nation, and so has grown up as a complement to the
Napoleonic theory of the “objective” another equally short-sighted
dogma――that of the “nation in arms,” with its blind worship of quantity
rather than quality.
Pacifists are fond of talking about the “armaments race.” A curious
sort of race――for which ponderous cart-horses are bred instead of
steeple-chasers, and where the trainers clap “mass objective” blinkers
on the horses’ heads, while the jockeys ride looking back over their
shoulders. Then they wonder why instead of taking their fences freely
the poor horses fall at the first open ditch, and cannot be got out
under four years?
There would seem to be a slight hitch somewhere in this Napoleonic
doctrine.
THE ORIGINS OF THE FALSE OBJECTIVE
How arose this “blinkered” conception that the national goal in war
could be attained only by mass destruction, and how did it gain so firm
a hold on military thought? The decisive influence was exerted not
by Napoleon himself, though his practical example of the beneficent
results of “absolute war” was its inspiration, but by his great German
expositor, Carl von Clausewitz. He it was who, in the years succeeding
Waterloo, analysed, codified, and deified the Napoleonic method.
Clausewitz has been the master at whose feet have sat for a century the
military students of Europe. From him, the German Army in particular
drew the inspiration by which they evolved their stupendous, if
fundamentally unsound, structure of “the nation in arms.” It achieved
its triumph in 1870 and, as a result, all the Powers hurried to
imitate the model, and to revive with ever greater intensity the
Napoleonic tradition, until finally the gigantic edifice was put to an
extended test in the years 1914–1918――with the result that in its fall
it has brought low not only Germany, but, with it, the rest of Europe.
Thus, because of the unsoundness of their foundations, Clausewitz’s
theories have ended by bringing his Fatherland into a more impotent
and impoverished state even than when it was under the iron heel of
Napoleon. Clausewitz’s was truly “a house built on sand.”
Yet, despite his main miscalculations, he had a wider understanding of
the objects of war than most of his disciples. Clausewitz did at least
recognize the existence of other objectives besides the armed forces.
He enumerated three general objects――the military power, the country,
and the will of the enemy. But his vital mistake was to place “the
will” last in his list, instead of first and embracing all the others,
and to maintain that the destruction of the enemy’s main armies was the
best way to ensure the remaining objects. Similarly, the other most
famous military teacher of the century before the Great War, Marshal
Foch, admitted the existence and wisdom, under certain conditions, of
other means, but, as with Clausewitz, the reservations were forgotten,
and his disciples remembered only his assertion that “the true theory”
of war was “that of the absolute war which Napoleon had taught Europe.”
This was but human nature, for the followers of any great teacher
demand a single watchword, however narrow. The idea of preserving a
broad and balanced point of view is anathema to the mass, who crave
for a slogan and detest the complexities of independent thought. It
is not surprising that military thought in recent generations, in its
blind worship of the idol of “absolute war,” has poured scorn on the
objectives of Napoleon’s predecessors――curiously forgetting that they
at least gained the purpose of their policy, whereas his ended in ruin.
One and all spoke and wrote with contempt of these eighteenth-century
strategists, though they included such men as Marshal Saxe, whose
writings bear the impress of a mind perhaps more original and unbiased
by traditional prejudices than any in military history.
Here is how Foch, in his _Principes de Guerre_, contrasts the exponents
of the rival theories: “Marshal de Saxe, albeit a man of undeniable
ability, said: ‘I am not in favour of giving battle.... I am even
convinced that a clever general can wage war his _whole life_ without
being compelled to do so.’ Entering Saxony in 1806, Napoleon writes to
Marshal Soult: ‘There is nothing I desire so much as a great battle.’
The one wants to avoid battle his whole life; the other demands it at
the first opportunity.”
So that even a man of the intellectual calibre of Marshal Foch thinks
solely of the tangible proofs of military victory, with never a
reflection as to which of these two men best fulfilled ultimately the
national objective of an honourable, secure, and prosperous future.
We see him greeting with approval the dictum of Clausewitz: “Blood is
the price of victory. You must either resort to it or give up waging
war. All reasons of humanity which you might advance will only expose
you to being beaten by a less sentimental adversary.”
In the latter sentence we see the recurring delusion of the traditional
military mind that the opposition to the Napoleonic theory must
necessarily be dictated by mere sentimentalism. It disregards the
possibility that it may be due to a far-sighted political economy,
which does not lose sight of the post-war years. A prosperous and
secure peace is a better monument of victory than a pyramid of skulls.
There are signs, however, that Marshal Foch, in contrast to his
intellectual compeers, has gained from recent experience a wider
conception of the aims of war and the true objective of military
policy. In a statement since the War on the subject of air-power, he
gave the weighty and illuminating judgment that “The potentialities
of aircraft attack on a large scale are almost incalculable, but
it is clear that such attack, owing to its crushing _moral effect
on a nation, may impress public opinion to the point of disarming
the Government and thus become decisive_.” Here is a dramatic and
far-reaching break with the “armed forces” objective. Perhaps also
his connection with the Ruhr policy is evidence of a grasp of the
possibilities not only of war without bloodshed, but war without
hostilities――the objective, more effective than the enemy’s military
power, being control of the rival’s industrial resources.
“Saul is numbered with the prophets!” The champion and embodiment of
the Napoleonic doctrine appears to have cast it overboard. We see an
indisputable recognition that two other objectives exist――one moral,
the other economic.
If the conversion comes a little late, when we are enjoying the happy
and prosperous peace procured for us by the method of “absolute war” so
eloquently preached in pre-war years by this august teacher, it may at
least acquit us of _lèse-majesté_ in suggesting, that by their blind
worship of the Napoleonic idol, our recent military guides not only
narrowed and distorted their whole conception of war, but led us into
the morass――financial, commercial, and moral――wherein the nations of
Europe in greater or less degree are now engulfed――as was France after
Napoleon.
When the high priest of the orthodox faith begins to have doubts, the
moment is ripe for those who do not hold that the advent of Napoleon
was the Year One of military history, who are disciples of earlier
Great Captains, to endeavour, in all humility, to propound a wider and
more scientific conception of war and its true objective.
Thus, should the millennium of Universal Peace fail to arrive, and
nations still continue to settle by an appeal to force questions
which vitally affect their policy, it may be that they will learn
to wage war in a manner less injurious to the interwoven fabric of
modern civilization, and incidentally to their own prosperity and
ultimate security, than proved the case in the Great War of 1914–1918.
Security――yes, because the greater the injury inflicted, the deeper
are the sores of the body politic, and in these the toxins of revenge
fester.
But to achieve this more scientific and economic military policy it
is necessary that public opinion should be awakened not only to the
results but also to the false foundations of the present theory of war.
The saying that “the onlooker sees most of the game” is as true of
the broader aspects of war as of anything else, and in the unfettered
common sense of the intelligent citizen, and its reaction on those
entrusted with the military weapons, lies the quickest chance of
deliverance from this dogma――for military authority holds with Bishop
Warburton that “orthodoxy is my doxy――heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.”
Soldiers who refuse to bow in adoration of Napoleon and Clausewitz,
his prophet, are condemned as heretics, and the repression of the
“Protestants” has been made possible by the apathy of the public
towards military questions. Men of the Anglo-Saxon race are not willing
to hand over their religious or political conscience into the keeping
of “authority,” yet by their lack of interest in military questions
they do in fact relinquish any check on a policy which affects the
security of their lives and livelihoods to an even greater extent. For,
when war bursts upon the nation, it is the ordinary citizens who pay
the toll either with their lives or from their pockets. Only by taking
an active interest in the broad aspects of national defence, and so
regaining control of their military conscience, can they avoid being
driven like sheep to the shearer and slaughterhouse, as in the last war.
PERMANENT NATIONAL OBJECTS
If the citizens of a nation were asked what should be the general aim
of the national policy, they would reply, in tenor if not in exact
words, that it should be such as to guarantee them “an honourable,
prosperous, and secure existence.”
No normal citizen of a democracy would willingly imperil this by a
resort to war. Only when he considers, or it is suggested to him
convincingly, that his honour, prosperity, or security are endangered
by the policy of another nation, will he consent to the grave step of
making war.
THE NATIONAL OBJECTIVE IN WAR
When, however, the fateful decision for war has been taken, what does
common sense tell us should be the national objective? To ensure a
resumption and progressive continuance of what may be termed the
peace-time policy, with the shortest and least costly interruption of
the normal life of the country.
What stands in the way of this? The determination of the hostile nation
to enforce its contrary policy in defiance of our own aims and desires.
To gain our aim or objective we have to change this adverse will into
a compliance with our own policy, and the sooner and more cheaply
in lives and money we can do this, the better chance is there of a
continuance of national prosperity in the widest sense.
The aim of a nation in war is, therefore, to subdue the enemy’s will to
resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself.
If we realize that this is the true objective, we shall appreciate
the fact that the _destruction_ of the enemy’s armed forces is but
a means――and not necessarily an inevitable or infallible one――to the
attainment of our goal. It is clearly not, despite the assertion of
military pundits, the sole true objective in war. Clear the air of the
fog of catchwords which surrounds the conduct of war, grasp that in the
human will lies the source and mainspring of all conflict, as of all
other activities of man’s life, and it becomes transparently clear that
our goal in war can only be attained by the subjugation of the opposing
will. All _acts_, such as defeat in the field, propaganda, blockade,
diplomacy, or attack on the centres of government and population, are
seen to be but means to that end; and, instead of being tied to one
fixed means, we are free to weigh the respective merits of each. To
choose whichever are most suitable, most rapid, and most economic,
_i.e._, which will gain the goal with the minimum disruption of our
national life during and _after_ the war. Of what use is decisive
victory in battle if we bleed to death as a result of it?
A single man can be beaten by the simple process of killing him. Not
so a nation――for total extermination, even if it were possible, would
recoil on the heads of the victors in the close-knit organization of
the world’s society, and would involve their own ethical and commercial
ruin――as we have had a foretaste from the attrition policy of the Great
War. But besides being mutually deadly it is unnecessary, for a highly
organized state is only as strong as its weakest link. In a great war
the whole nation is involved, though not necessarily, or wisely, under
arms. The fists and the sinews of war are mutually dependent, and, if
we can demoralize one section of the nation, the collapse of its will
to resist compels the surrender of the whole――as the last months of
1918 demonstrated.
It is the function of grand strategy to discover and exploit the
Achilles’ heel of the enemy nation; to strike not against its strongest
bulwark but against its most vulnerable spot. In the earliest recorded
war, Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, thus slew the foremost champion
of the Greeks. As the Greek legend runs, Achilles, when a child,
having been dipped by his mother, Thetis, in the waters of the Styx,
his whole body became invulnerable save only the heel by which she
held him. In the Trojan war, after Achilles had slain Hector in direct
combat, Paris brought stratagem to bear, and his arrow, guided by
Apollo, struck Achilles in his vulnerable heel. It is significant that
Apollo, among his numerous attributes, was held to be the sun god, and
the god of prophecy, for here surely he forecast the future of war, and
shed light on the true objective――a ray of truth too dazzling for the
vision of all but a few soldiers.
After dashing out the lives of millions in vain assault against the
enemy’s strength, it might not be amiss now to take a lesson from the
objective aimed at by Paris three thousand years ago.
Turning from myth to history, it may be useful to glance at two
authentic examples of the use of the moral objective――which in each
case changed the course of the world’s history.
HISTORICAL EXAMPLES OF THE MORAL OBJECTIVE
First, from the Punic Wars. In the struggle between Rome and Carthage
for the domination of the ancient world, the two mother cities with
their government and population form the vital points――the moral
objective. Hannibal, the Carthaginian leader, lives in history as, with
Napoleon, the supreme military executant of all time. Yet similarly he
appears to lack the gift of “grand strategical” vision. His objective
is the armed forces of the enemy, but even the annihilating victory
of Cannæ does not bring him to his goal, because Rome itself stands
unmastered. The apologists for Hannibal are legion, but they cannot
obscure the truth that by his failure to gain Rome he ultimately lost
Carthage. Scipio Africanus, his ultimate conqueror at Zama, suffers
from the misfortune that his own claims to fame are overshadowed by
his adversary’s dramatic victories and heroic stand in Italy for so
many years, which appeal to the sentimental imagination. But Scipio’s
appreciation of the principle of the objective is surely more profound.
Instead of seeking a decision in Italy, where his troops would suffer
under the moral influence of Hannibal’s repeated victories in that
theatre, Scipio, in face of the most weighty protests, embarks for
Carthage. His immediate objective is to free Italy, and he realizes
that a threat to Carthage will so act upon the moral of the citizens
that they will recall Hannibal. The result proves the soundness of his
judgment. Then, by striking at the resources of Carthage in Northern
Africa he accomplishes the next step towards the subjugation of the
Carthaginian will, and so to Zama, the flight of Hannibal himself to
the East, and the capitulation of Carthage. Scipio’s moral objective
triumphs over the “armed forces” theory of Hannibal.
Turning to the history of the modern world, we have the example of the
campaign of 1814, which ended in Napoleon’s abdication and relegation
to the Isle of Elba. Never perhaps in his whole career does Napoleon’s
genius shine so brightly as in that series of dramatic victories in
February and March, 1814, by which he staggers the Allies, until, in
pursuit of the delusive military objective, he over-reaches himself. He
moves east to fall upon Schwarzenberg’s rear, drawn on by the theory
of destroying the main mass of the enemy’s forces. By this move he
uncovers Paris――and the Allies march straight forward to gain the true
objective――the nerve centre of the French will to resist. Paris is
the prey of war alarms and fatigue, in the very condition for a moral
detonator to wreck Napoleon’s hold. The Royalist, de Vitrolles, tells
the Czar Alexander that “People are tired of the war and of Napoleon.
Consider politics rather than strategy, and march straight on Paris,
where the true opinion of the people will be shown the moment the
Allies appear.” Captured despatches also bear witness to the underlying
discontent of the Capital. The Czar summons a council of war. Barclay
de Tolly, the senior, urges that the forces should be concentrated, to
follow and attack Napoleon. General Toll affirms that there is only one
true course, to “advance on Paris by forced marches with the whole of
our army, detaching only 10,000 cavalry to mask our movement.”
Barclay de Tolly disagrees and argues the example――so hackneyed in
later years――of the occupation of Moscow. Toll points out that the
effect of the seizure of Paris will be decisive economically and
morally, and that there is no true parallel between the cases of Moscow
and _Paris_――the nodal point of France.
The Czar decides for Toll’s plans, the army sweeps on Paris and
enters in triumph after but the slightest resistance, while Napoleon
is winning delusive successes in Lorraine. When the news from Paris
reaches him, he thinks frantically of a counter-march, but the moral
germ disseminated by the occupation of Paris spreads even among his
generals and troops. Too late! So great are the moral repercussions
of the act, that in a brief space Napoleon, with the people and his
satellites turned against him, is forced to an unconditional abdication.
Some might suggest that the German failure to achieve victory in 1914
is a still more recent example of the truth that the moral objective
is the real one. History may well decide that had the German Higher
Command been less obsessed with the dream of a Cannæ manœuvre, and
struck at Paris first instead of attempting to surround the French
armies, “Deutschland über alles” might now be an accomplished fact.
On the island of Corfu is a giant statue of Achilles, with his heel
transfixed by the arrow. Countless hours the ex-Kaiser spent gazing at
this statue, yet its message apparently made no impression. “Whom the
gods wish to destroy they first make ...”――blind.
THE MEANS TO THE MORAL OBJECTIVE
After this brief historical survey, let us turn to consider the means
by which the moral objective, of subduing the enemy’s will to resist,
can be attained. These means can be exercised in the military, the
economic, the political, or the social spheres. Further, the weapons by
which they are executed may be military, economic, or diplomatic――with
which is included propaganda.
As war is our subject, the diplomatic and economic weapons, except
in a military guise, are outside our purview. There appears little
doubt, however, that the economic weapon in the struggle between
rival national policies during so-called peace has possibilities
still scarcely explored or understood. Again, the military weapon
can be wielded in the economic sphere without any open state of war
existing. In the Ruhr we saw the French aiming, by a military control
of Germany’s industrial resources, to subdue the latter’s will to
resist French policy, and with the further motive of a moral disruption
between the German states.
What, however, are the ways in which the military weapon can be
employed to subdue the enemy’s will to resist _in war_?
The question demands that we first examine how the moral attack takes
effect, and how the will of an enemy people is reduced to such a degree
that they will sue for peace rather than face a continuation of the
struggle. Put in a nutshell, the result is obtained by dislocating
their normal life to such a degree that they will prefer the lesser
evil of surrendering their policy, and by convincing them that any
return to “normalcy”――to use President Harding’s term――is hopeless
unless they do so surrender. It is an old proverb that “So long as
there is life, there is hope,” and this Ciceronian saw may be adduced
to support the argument that in the case of people who fight best
“with their backs to the wall” only death will end their resistance.
This may be true of individuals, or even of considerable bodies of
men; the annals of the Anglo-Saxon race afford examples――though such
cases have almost always occurred when surrender was as fatal as
continued resistance. As soldiers know well, time throws an heroic
glamour over events of the past, and national pride leads to pardonable
exaggeration of great deeds. Such _résistance à mort_ is probably as
rare as that mythical bayonet charge and hand-to-hand clash with cold
steel so beloved of tradition and the painter of battle scenes. The
latter myth was exposed by the long-dead Ardant du Picq, that French
soldier-realist who refused to bow before the altar of the martial
tradition. And the Great War finally dissipated it. Imaginative
soldiers, especially those in the supply services, might write letters
home describing such close quarter fights, war-correspondents safely
behind the lines might retail such martial exploits for the benefit of
a sensation-loving public, but the real fighting soldier soon found
that two sides did not cross bayonets in mortal conflict. The weaker
broke and fled, or else threw up their hands as token of surrender the
moment they realized the actual shock could no longer be warded off.
The normal man, immediately he recognizes a stronger, directly he
realizes the hopelessness of overcoming his enemy, always yields. Nor
is man unique in this respect, as any study of animal life will confirm.
Armies and nations are mainly composed of normal men, not of abnormal
heroes, and once these realize the _permanent_ superiority of the enemy
they will surrender to _force majeure_.
History, even Anglo-Saxon history, shows that nations bow to the
inevitable, and abandon their policy rather than continue a struggle
once hope has vanished. No war between civilized people has been
carried, nor anywhere near carried, to the point of extermination.
The living alone retain the power to admit defeat, and since wars,
therefore, are ended by surrender and not by extermination, it becomes
apparent that defeat is the result not of loss of life, save, at the
most, indirectly and partially, but by loss of moral.
The enemy nation’s will to resist is subdued by the fact _or threat_
of making life so unpleasant and difficult for the people that they
will comply with your terms rather than endure this misery. We use the
words “or threat” because sometimes a nation, directly its means of
resistance――its forces――were overthrown, has hastened to make peace
before its territory was actually invaded. Such timely surrender is
merely a recognition of the inevitable consequences.
In what ways is this pressure exerted? Partly through the stomach,
partly through the pocket, and partly through the spirit. In the
“good old days” more forcible physical measures were practised,
burning, pillage, and rapine. But in the present age the wholesale
and avowed use of such persuasive aids is barred by the ethical code
of nations――and press publicity, though, as the last war showed,
still indulged in sporadically with or without the specious excuse
of “reprisals.” But if the international conscience is too tender to
permit this direct violence, it swallows its qualms where the people’s
will to resist is undermined by the indirect method of wholesale
starvation. Deprive individuals of food and there is an outcry, cut
off the food supply of a nation and the moral sense of the world is
undisturbed. Thus the naval weapon is pre-eminently the means of
applying “stomach” pressure, because its blockade is indirect instead
of direct, general instead of particular. As nothing more surely
undermines moral than starvation, a blockade would seem obviously
the best means to gain the moral objective were it not for two grave
disadvantages. First, it can only be successful where the enemy
country is not self-supporting, and can be entirely surrounded――or at
any rate its supplies from outside effectively intercepted. Second, it
is slow to take effect, and so imposes a strain on the resources of the
blockading country.
Pressure through “the pocket” can be exerted directly by levies,
confiscation, or seizure of customs――which require a military
occupation――and indirectly by the general dislocation of business and
the stoppage of the enemy’s commerce. Above all, as the military forces
of a modern nation are but the wheels of the car of war, dependent
for their driving power on the engine――the nation’s industrial
resources――it follows that a breakdown in the engine or in the
transmission――the means of transport and communication――will inevitably
render the military forces immobile and powerless. Just as the engine
and transmission of an automobile, because of the intricacy and
delicacy of their joints and working parts, are far more susceptible
to damage than the road wheels, so in a modern nation at war its
industrial resources and communications form its Achilles’ heel. Mere
common sense should tell us that if possible these are the points at
which to strike.
Pressure on “the spirit” is intimately connected with that on “the
pocket,” a thorough and long-continued interruption of the normal life
of a nation is as depressing and demoralizing as the intimidation
of the people by methods of terrorism――which, even if temporarily
successful, usually react among civilized nations to the detriment of
the aggressor by stimulating the will to resist or by so outraging the
moral sense of other nations as to pave the way for their intervention.
In the past a military occupation of the hostile country has generally
been the ultimate method of bringing to bear this pressure on the
spirit, and may still be necessary against semi-civilized peoples
spread out in little self-supporting communities, whose material wants
are simple, and who offer no highly organized industrial and economic
system for attack or control by an enemy.
But though the indignity and restrictions that arise from a military
occupation are always galling, the conscience of the world forbids, or
at least limits, the terrorism of earlier times and so makes the mere
presence of an invading army less irksome. Conversely, with the growth
of civilization the dislocation or control of an enemy’s industrial
centres and communications becomes both more effective and more easy as
the means by which to subdue his will to resist.
Every modern industrial nation has its vitals; in one case it may be
essential mining areas, in another manufacturing districts, a third
may be dependent on overseas trade coming into its ports, a fourth so
highly centralized that its capital is the real as well as the nominal
heart of its life. In most cases there is a blend of these several
factors, and in all the regular flow of transport along its arteries is
a vital requirement.
As warships are tied to the sea, they cannot penetrate into an enemy
country; as, moreover, they are notoriously at a disadvantage against
land defences, they cannot even occupy his ports. Hence they are
limited to indirect action against the enemy’s vitals――either by
blockade, by enabling troops to be landed, or nowadays by serving as
a mobile base for aircraft which can strike at “nerve centres” within
some 250 miles of the coast.
Armies have hitherto been the means of “direct action,” whether against
the resources of the enemy nation, the intimidation of the people, or
by the capture or overthrow of individuals who were the mainspring of
the opposing policy.
Armies, however, suffer one serious handicap in subduing the hostile
will. Being tied to one plane of movement, compelled to move across the
land, it has rarely been possible for them to reach the enemy capital
or other vital centres without first disposing of the enemy’s main
army, which forms the shield of the opposing government and nation.
It was because of this age-long limitation that the short-sighted, if
natural, delusion arose that the armed forces themselves were the real
objective.
But the air has introduced a third dimension into warfare, and with the
advent of the aeroplane new and boundless possibilities are introduced.
Hitherto war has been a gigantic game of draughts. Now it becomes
a game of halma. Aircraft enables us _to jump over_ the army which
shields the enemy government, industry, and people, and _so strike
direct and immediately at the seat of the opposing will and policy_. A
nation’s nerve-system, no longer covered by the flesh of its troops,
is now laid bare to attack, and, like the human nerves, the progress
of civilization has rendered it far more sensitive than in earlier and
more primitive times.
THE AIR WEAPON
In the Great War aircraft filled but an auxiliary _rôle_ to the
established arms, and their action against the moral objective was
merely sporadic. The blow planned against Berlin, which might have
revealed beyond question the decisive influence of the new arm, was
still-born because of Germany’s haste to conclude an armistice. Those
who depreciate the value of the air attack point to the comparatively
small damage wrought by any particular attack in the Great War,
arguing also that the influx of recruits after some of them showed that
such “frightfulness” brought its own recoil in a stiffening of the
national “upper lip.”
The best answer to this short-sighted deduction is to present a
few facts. Between the 31st of May, 1915, and the 20th May, 1918,
the German air-raids over the London area were carried out with an
aggregate force of 13 Zeppelins and 128 aeroplanes, dropping in all
less than 300 tons of bombs. The total result was 224 fires, 174
buildings completely destroyed, and 619 seriously damaged, a damage
estimated in money at something over £2,000,000. This was achieved for
the most part in face of strong air and ground defences, and in a war
where the total British air force was never markedly inferior in size
to its enemy, indeed generally the reverse.
Let us for a moment take a modern comparison, simply to point the
moral. France has 990 aeroplanes in the home country, Great Britain
312――and this is a notable increase on the situation two years ago.
Even allowing an ample margin of aircraft to hold the British air
fleet in check, it would be easily possible for a greater weight of
bombs to be dropped on London in one day than in the whole of the Great
War, and to repeat the dose at frequent and brief intervals.
A damage spread over three years is a flimsy basis on which to estimate
the moral and material results of such a blow concentrated on a single
day, delivered with an accuracy and destructive effect unrealizable by
the primitive instruments of 1915–1918. Moreover, what is an air fleet
of a thousand compared with future possibilities, as civil aviation
develops?
Witnesses of the earlier air attacks before our defence was organized,
will not be disposed to underestimate the panic and disturbance that
would result from a concentrated blow dealt by a superior air fleet.
Who that saw it will ever forget the nightly sight of the population of
a great industrial and shipping town, such as Hull, streaming out into
the fields on the first sound of the alarm signals? Women, children,
babies in arms, spending night after night huddled in sodden fields,
shivering under a bitter wintry sky――the exposure must have caused far
more harm than the few bombs dropped from two or three Zeppelins.
Of the crippling effect on industrial output, let facts speak: “In
1916, hostile aircraft _approached_ the Cleveland district in thirteen
different weeks――which reduced the year’s output in that district by
390,000 tons (of pig-iron), or one-sixth of the annual output. In
certain armament works it was observed that on the days following
raids, skilled men made more mistakes in precision work than usual, the
quality of the work done was inferior, while air raids made a constant
output impossible.”
Those pundits who prate about the “armed forces” objective appear to
forget that an army without munitions is a somewhat useless instrument.
Imagine for a moment that, of two centralized industrial nations at
war, one possesses a superior air force, the other a superior army.
Provided that the blow be sufficiently swift and powerful, there is no
reason why within a few hours, or at most days from the commencement
of hostilities, the nerve system of the country inferior in air power
should not be paralysed.
A modern state is such a complex and interdependent fabric that it
offers a target highly sensitive to a sudden and overwhelming blow
from the air. We all know how great an upset in the daily life of the
country is caused at the outset of a railway strike even. Business is
disorganized by the delay of the mails and the tardy arrival of the
staff, the shops are at a standstill without fresh supplies, the people
feel lost without newspapers――rumours multiply, and the signs of panic
and demoralization make their appearance. Perhaps an even more striking
parallel may be found in the disruption of the whole life of Japan
in the recent earthquake. An air attack of the intensity that is now
possible would be likely to excel even this stroke in its disorganizing
and demoralizing effect. Imagine for a moment London, Manchester,
Birmingham, and half a dozen other great centres simultaneously
attacked, the business localities and Fleet Street wrecked, Whitehall
a heap of ruins, the slum districts maddened into the impulse to
break loose and maraud, the railways cut, factories destroyed. Would
not the general will to resist vanish, and what use would be the still
determined fractions of the nation, without organization and central
direction?
Victory in air war will lie with whichever side first gains the moral
objective. If one side is so foolish as to waste time――more the supreme
factor than ever before――in searching for the armed forces of the
enemy, which are mobile and capable of concealment, then clearly the
static civil centres of its own land will be paralysed first――and the
issue will be decided long before the side which trusted in the “armed
forces” objective has crossed the enemy’s frontiers.
If, on the other hand, the decisiveness of the moral objective be
admitted, is it not the height of absurdity to base the military forces
of a nation on infantry, which would――even if unopposed――take weeks
to reach Essen or Berlin, for example, when aircraft could reach and
destroy both in a matter of hours?
OBJECTIONS TO THE AIR-ATTACK
To this use of aircraft to gain the moral objective there are, however,
two possible objections, one economic, the other ethical. The economic
limitation is that by destroying the enemy factories and communications
we may so cripple his commerce and industry as seriously to reduce
his post-war value as a potential customer. There is a certain weight
in this argument, for if one lesson stands out clearly from the last
war it is that the commerce and prosperity of civilized nations are
so closely interwoven and interdependent that the destruction of the
enemy country’s economic wealth recoils on the head of the victor.
The obvious reply, however, is that even the widespread damage of a
decisive air attack would inflict less total damage and constitute
less of a drain on the defeated country’s recuperative powers than a
prolonged war of the existing type.
The ethical objection is based on the seeming brutality of an attack on
the civilian population, and the harmful results to the aggressor of
any outrage of the human feelings of the neutral peoples. The events of
the last war have, however, in some measure acclimatised the world to
the idea that in a war between nations the damage cannot be restricted
merely to the paid gladiators. When, moreover, the truth is realized
that a swift and sudden blow of this nature inflicts a total of injury
far less than when spread over a number of years, the common sense of
mankind will show that the ethical objection to this form of war is at
least not greater than to the cannon-fodder wars of the past.
But self-interest as well as humane reasons demand that the warring
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?
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.
* * * * *
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.
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