The Reformation of War

The Reformation of

WAR. "By Col. J. F. C. Fuller, D.S.O

Author of ''Tanks in the Great War," "Training Soldiers
for War," etc. ::

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/♦

The Spirit of Progress: "Halt! Who gees there?"

The Spirit of Mankind : ' ' War ! ' '

The Spirit of Progress: "Pass, War, all's well ! '

. ^

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. :: 1923

u

IDS.

F87

DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE

Tnnftnown TlCUmor

IN WHOSE BROKEN BODY

LIVES THE MEMORY OF A MILLION BRITISH DEAD

WHO FEAR NOT FORGETFULNESS

IF THROUGH THEIR SACRIFICE

WAR MAY BE ENNOBLED AND REFORMED

PREFACE

" Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar' d host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps :
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand. . . ."

King Henry V., IV. ii. 43.

" O ! now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel ;
The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs ;
And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of man."

King John, II. i. 351.

Alas ! that I should have been born in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, for, had this event taken place a hundred
years earlier, I should have been spared many troubles, including
the writing of this book. In those days warfare was so simple,
and, by education, I ought to be a follower of Major Gahagan —
seeing that I am an admirer of his " tremendous adventures."

" On they came ; my guns and men were ready for them. You will
ask how my pieces were loaded ? I answer, that though my garrison
were without food, I knew my duty as an officer, and had put
the two Dutch cheeses into the two guns, and had crammed the contents
of a bottle of olives into each swivel.

" They advanced — whish went one of the Dutch cheeses, bang
went the other ! Alas, they did little execution. In their first
contact with an opposing body, they certainly floored it, but they
became at once like so much Welsh rabbit, and did no execution
beyond the man whom they struck down.

"'Hogree, pogree, wongree-f um ' (praise to Allah and the forty-
nine Imaums !) shouted out the ferocious Loll Mahommed when he
saw the failure of my shot. ' Onward, sons of the Prophet ! The
infidel has no more ammunition. A hundred thousand lakhs of
rupees to the man who brings me Gahagan's head ! '

" I gave one thought to my blessed, my beautiful Belinda, and
then, stepping into the front, took down one of the swivels. A

7

viii Preface

shower of matchlock balls came whizzing round my head. I did
not heed them.

" I took the swivel and aimed coolly. Loll Mahommed, his
palanquin and his men, were now not above two hundred yards
from the fort. Loll was straight before me, gesticulating and shout-
ing to his men. I fired — bang ! ! !

" I aimed so true that one hundred and seventeen best Spanish
olives were lodged in a lump in the face of the unhappy Loll Mahommed.
The wretch, uttering a yell the most hideous and unearthly I ever
heard, fell back dead . The frightened bearers flung down the palan-
quin and ran. The whole host ran as one man, their screams might
be heard for leagues. ' Tomasha, tomasha,' they cried, ' it is
enchantment.' Away they fled, and the victory a third time was
ours. Soon as the fight was done, I flew back to my Belinda. ..."

In his heart of hearts, who would not be a traditional soldier,
a Gahagan with his fair Belinda ? And yet, through some trick
in my nature, I intend to inquire into the probabilities of future
warfare in place of examining the tactics of the Ahmednuggar
Irregulars. I admit it is a surprising thing to do, seeing that I
have successfully passed all my military examinations and some
even with distinction ; but the ways of man are inscrutable, so I
will say no more.

I intend inquiring into the nature of future warfare, not
because I love war or hate war, but because I believe that war is
of the inevitable, and that the greatest of all heresies and delu-
sions concerning it is to suppose that the Great War of 19 14-
1918 is the last of all wars. That it may be the last of its kind I
full-heartedly agree to, so much so that I believe the nature of the
next great war will be totally different from the last ; so different
that, even if great nations go to war in 1950, the recent war will
appear to those not far distant fighters as a struggle between
barbaric hordes, a saurian contest, not mediaeval but primaeval,
archaic, a turmoil, which in the history of the evolution of war-
fare is more distant from that day than the Marne was from
Marathon.

If, after meditating on the views set forth in this book, the
reader believes that I am right, even if only partially so, then this
book is worth supporting ; if he believes, however, that I am

Preface ix

wrong, even if totally so, then this book is worth refuting ; for
war is a serious problem, and the next war the most serious of
all problems : this at least the last war should have taught us. To
meditate is not only to think and think again, but to think rightly,
logically according to facts, to discover the soul of thought ; and
this can never be done if our minds are shackled by our senti-
ments or stamped by our emotions. To anathematize war is to
gibber like a fool, and to declare it to be unreasonable, is to
twaddle like a pedant. Love is unreasonable and so is madness.
All things divine and diabolical are unreasonable, and mixed with
clay from out these two unreasoning opposites emerges man, a
vibrating mass of unreasoning instincts which will out, and
demoniacally so when they are imprisoned. As well attempt to
damp down Erebus with a duster as to attempt to control the
primitive instincts of man by oath, syllogism, or agreement.

To some, the one unforgivable sin in man is that he is human
— a thinking beast, a discontented animal ; these believe in
original sin. I do not ; I believe in original thought and spew out
that nauseous mental drug called imitation. I may be a heretic,
a military Luther, yet nevertheless I try to accept man as God
made him, and not as Mr. Smith would like him to be. Tell me
studious reader, which of us two blasphemes, Smith or I ?

Frankly I am critical, not only because I refuse to be led by a
halter, but because, in my heart, I have a very warm place for Mr.
Smith, who, as Private, Sergeant, Subaltern and General, has been
for many years my friend and companion. I have watched him
in two long wars struggling against odds, and I have learnt to
appreciate his virtues, and his failings, and his indomitable
courage. He is a man who possesses such natural pride of birth
that, through sheer contempt for others, he refuses to learn or to
be defeated. He divides humanity into two classes : English-
men and niggers, and of the second class some happen to be black
and others white. He only condescends to differentiate between
these sub-classes by calling the latter dagoes. To him, all white
folk, outside his own little islands, are such. From these he has
nothing to learn, yet he is tolerant, tolerant as he would be to his

X

Preface

dog ; he has, in fact, raised the vice of contempt to a high virtue
and on this virtue is the British Empire founded.

Having nothing to learn, through sheer power of domination,
he has become the prince of rulers, and through sheer refusal to be
defeated by niggers the master of improvisation. He is always
there, for the sun never sets on his Empire, but he is never ready.
For readiness would presuppose fear, and what has he, as an
Englishman, to be afraid of ? He is an incarnation of King
Henry V., and every battle he fights is an Agincourt.

Surely, then, it is but folly to disturb his confidence ? It
would be so if the world were what it was, but the world has
changed and with it has changed the art of war. The jar of
science has been fished up from out the deep, and its seal has been
broken, and no English contempt for others will coax the Jinn
back into his bottle. We must face facts. Courage is still a
great virtue, but the power of knowledge is equally great, and
because the Englishman lacks this power, through his sheer
contempt to learn, and because I, as an Englishman, love my
countrymen, therefore I intend to flog Mr. Smith with criticism.
Whether I shall succeed in waking him from his self-pride I
cannot tell, for his skin is thick, and he sleeps soundly ; but if I
can persuade him to turn over in his bed and for a moment look
the other way — future-wards, then I shall not be disappointed.
He will accuse me of producing a nightmare, and then, through
sheer contempt for such things, he will either fall to sleep again,
or perhaps he will rise from his couch.

For many years now have I attempted to wake him, and I
have written much on war, so much that this book is but a com-
pilation of past writings brought up to date.* Much that I have
written I have already scrapped, and much that I write now I
shall scrap if I write more, for knowledge is an ever changing
power. The man who never changes his mind, has mineralized
his intellect. He is but a walking stone ; he may be shale or
Aberdeen granite, it matters not, for dynamite will shatter him,

* In the Appendix will be found a list of these. I have not quoted them
in the text as in most cases the wording has been changed.

Preface xi

and it is with dynamite I intend to work. Yet this does not
prohibit the discovery of a still more powerful explosive, and, if
any of my readers can present me with one, I will accept it, for
knowledge to be strong, must be free. To shackle it is, in my
humble opinion, to sin against God, for His highest gift to us is
intellect.

In this book I do not intend to enter deeply into the biology
of war, but in Chapter I. I will briefly examine this subject, for
there is such a condition as this, and so little is it understood that
even to-day, in this age of scientific thought, there are still many
among us who fondly delude themselves into believing that
disarmament and words can abolish war. " Take away our
weapons and we still have our fists, our teeth and our nails,"
shriek human instincts ; " and as for words. ..." the answer
is all but lost in a derisive laugh, " we will force you to eat them
and then we will eat you. . . . Think you that we can be measured
by foot rule and square ? Out fool, our road is freedom ; the
direction of our energy you may control, but the onrush of our
flight you will never stay."

To those who thus believe, this book may assist them to prepare
for war and so lessen, if only for themselves, its catastrophies.
To those who do not, then may this book assist them to attack
war. I write for both, for those whom I believe to be wise and for
those whom I believe to be foolish, for my object is to induce all
conditions of men not only to talk of war but to think of war.
Thus and thus only shall we learn how to understand war,
especially the nature of the next war ; thus shall we learn how to
enhance the virtues of war and how to lessen its vices, and, above
all, how to fend war off until mankind has recovered from the
recent turmoil, and not only recovered but has replaced the
civilization then shattered by a nobler human edifice. Without
war there would be no driving out of the money-lenders from the
temple of human existence. Without it, customs, interests and
prejudices would rot and putrefy, and mankind would be slowly
asphyxiated by the stench of his own corruption. The Great
War, economically, may have been a disaster, yet the sufferings

xii Preface

caused by it were the birth -pangs of a new dispensation. Every
gain demands a sacrifice, not even a child can be born into this
world without the agony of one poor soul, the least offending of
all — its mother.

That the ideas set forth in this book will be generally accepted
by soldiers I more than doubt. As a soldier I am a heretic. lam
a heretic because I have torn up the Old Testament of War and
in this book have attempted to replace it by the first pages of a
new one. Novelty is a mental laxative which is not tolerated by
the military monk. Reader, if you doubt me, then turn to
history. Every military invention of note has either been op-
posed or attributed to the Devil— gunpowder, cannon, naval
armour, rams, rifles, breech-loading guns, gas and tanks have all
been opposed by the military hierarchy of their day. But they
are devilish say you ; then I answer : " Fool, hold your tongue,"
for you who are not soldiers are mentally just as constipated.
Was it not a civilian who brought a bill before the British Parlia-
ment " to prevent the effeminacy of men riding in coaches " at
the time when coaches were struggling into existence, and yet
others who decried the steamship, locomotive and motor-car.
Nearly every great discovery has been opposed — chloroform,
vaccination, the law of evolution, salvarsan, auto-suggestion,
and so might be added example to example. Yet opposition has
had its value ; it has forced the new idea to struggle for its exist-
ence, and in this struggle has the new idea grown strong, and as
it gains strength so does the old idea compromise, knuckle under
and, eventually, disappear. Every pioneer is somewhat of a
martyr, and every martyr somewhat of a firebrand who kills with
ridicule as well as with reason.

I have not written this book for military monks, but for
civilians, who pay for their alchemy and mysteries. In war
there is nothing mysterious, for it is the most common-sense of
all the sciences, and this I will show in Chapter II. If it possess
a mystery, then that mystery is unprogressiveness, for it is a
mystery that, in a profession which may, at any moment, demand
the risk of danger and death, men are to be found willing to base

Preface xiii

their work on the campaigns of Waterloo and Sedan when the
only possible war which confronts them is the next one.

In Chapter III. I will examine the ethical side of war, for with-
out a full understanding of this side can there be no debrutalization
of the art. In Chapter IV. I will show what price the nations of
Europe paid for copying the past, and then in Chapter V. how out/
of folly blossomed wisdom ; how it was discovered that science I
was the backbone of victory, science which since 1870 had ad-

vanced like a giant in seven-league boots while soldiers were
forming fours and practising the goose-step.

In Chapters VI., VII., VIII. and IX., I will deal with future
warfare from a general standpoint, setting before the reader
a series of possible pictures rather than a mass of probable
detail, so that, from the general panorama, he may carry away
with him an idea of the tendencies of war.

I will show that gas can be made the most humane of wea-
pons ; that the aeroplane will create a new line of attack ;
that the tank is as superior to present-day troops as modern
battleships are to galleys and galleons. I will examine the
purposes of fleets and speculate on their strategy and tactics
in the future, and show that though the principles of war do not
change, their correct application is subject to circumstances.

In writing this book it was first my intention only to deal
with the question of future great wars, but, in thinking this
matter over, I have considered it as well to add a chapter,
Chapter X., on small wars and internal security, as these problems
are those which immediately concern us in our great problem
of Imperial defence. As this question is one which is ever
latent and from which we are never free, I have dealt more
with present than with future possibilities, but have again
attempted to avoid much detail.

In the remaining three Chapters— XL, XII. and XIII., I have
sketched the groundwork of reformation. Taking the body
of man as my prototype, I have outlined the machinery of
reorganization. In Chapter XI. I have attempted to create a
military brain, an organ which can control the entire defence

xiv Preface

forces of the nation. In Chapter XII. I have attempted to
fashion a mould in which a new army can be cast, and in Chapter
XIII. I have attempted to show that beyond the mind and body
of man stands society, and so also with the defence forces,
beyond these lies the nation, and that between these two must
there be harmony ; consequently without national reform
can there be no true military reform, for the reform of both
is interdependent.

Now that it is written and I can look back on this book, it
appears to me that I have not so much set out to discover a
new world as to uncover an old one : " The thing that hath
been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is done is
that which shall be done : and there is no new thing under the
sun."

For the student, let him visit the London Museum and on
the top storey he will find in a small room a model of St. James's
as it was in 1814. On it he will see rising out of the Green
Park a temple. It is called the " Temple of Concord," and
on the wall he will see a picture of this " pious hope " which
resembles a painted wedding cake surrounded by smoke and
fire, and from the inscription on this picture the student will
learn that, at midnight of August 1, 18 14, London witnessed
the celebration of the Great Peace.

The booming of those maroons and the star showers of
those rockets have long passed into oblivion, and so has that
Temple of Concord. A hundred years later, almost to the
minute, Europe was once again flaming with war. What a
lesson ! Indeed " there is no new thing under the sun."

In this book I shall omit much which, were books less ex-
pensive to produce, I should have included. Some points I
shall repeat again and again, and with a purpose — to drive
them home. Traditionalism is the dragon I am out to slay,
that servile monster which breathes forth wars of bloodshed
and destruction. I will show that the true purpose of war is
to create and not to destroy, and that, still to-day, all armies
and fleets are spell-bound by the past, and that the nations

Preface xv

which support them and pay vast sums for their maintenance,
are paying for either cut-throats or for phantoms.

Human intuition is nearly always right, but human tuition
is nearly always wrong, and in this book I will examine the
meaning of these two forces, how instinct is true and how learn-
ing is so frequently false. It is the next war which vitally con-
cerns us and not the last, and this next war I believe will be
very different from the last, and here is my first repetition.
Quite possibly, when Europe is once again aflame, those already
enlisted may find the army a safer habitation than an office
in Lombard Street. Then, in place of witnessing the Israelites
fleeing to Brighton, shall we behold them flocking to Great

Scotland Yard !

J. F. C. F.
Cafe des Aveugles,

November 20, 1922.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

Prologue

I. — The Origins of War ....
II. — The Science and Art of War
III. — The Ethics of War ....
IV. — The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch .
V. — The First Lap of the Moral Epoch
VI. — The Weapon of the Future .
VII. — The Future of Air Warfare
VIII. — The Future of Land Warfare
IX. — The Future of Sea Warfare
X. — The Problem of Imperial Defence
XL — The Meaning of Grand Strategy .
XII. — The Reformation of the Army
XIII. — The Peace which Passeth Understanding

Epilogue

Appendix. Bibliography

PAGE

I

6

24
56

75
102
120

-v

136
152

170

189

211
229
256
279

285

The Reformation of War

PROLOGUE

COMMON-SENSE

Philosophy is a love of wisdom, and wisdom is the power of
forming the fittest judgments from whatever premises are
under consideration. Philosophy is, therefore, an evolutionary
system of thought which has as its objective the survival of the
fittest thoughts. While animals progress through the struggles
of body, humankind, as distinct from animals, progresses
through the struggles of mind, but with this difference : that,
while in animal life every unit must struggle in order to sur-
vive, in human life the struggles of one great brain will, on
occasion, remould an epoch. We find, therefore, that human
beings may be divided into two categories — the masters (super-
men) and the slaves (super-monkeys) ; in fact, into creators
and imitators. This has always been so, and is likely to remain
so, for without the second there can be no opposition to the
first, and opposition is the manure of progress, and progress,
seemingly, is of the will of God.

If the aim of wisdom is to arrive at the fittest judgments,
then, indeed, is common-sense the true philosophy of life. To
do the most appropriate thing at any moment is what is generally
known as a common-sense act ; in other words, common-sense
may be defined as : " thought and action adapted to circum-
stances."

Common-sense is the secret of the masters, but to the slaves

i

2 The Reformation of War

it is the greatest of all heresies, for to doubt that " thought
and action are adapted to conventions " is to them the one
unforgivable sin. In the great masters common-sense is not
only spontaneous but prescient, for not only are actions adapted
to circumstances, but the circumstances themselves are seen
in advance of their happening. In this form common-sense
is known as " genius," which, in nature, is creative and not
formative ; that is to say it produces wholes and does not
merely set together parts. Genius may be classed, therefore,
as masculine in character, for it produces the seed of a new
life, while labour, the work of the slaves, is feminine, for it
takes many months, many years, to build the finished article,
and, then, it frequently spoils it in the process.

In the philosophy of common-sense there is no absolute
truth, and, whether the absolute exists or not, it does not fall
within its purview ; metaphysics have but a very subordinate
place in the realms of common-sense, the normal sphere of
which is the existing and the evolution of the actual.

The absolute, especially under the conception of the absolute
truth, is the undying cause of mental warfare. Millions of
brains have thought upon this subject, hundreds of thousands
of books have been written to explain it, and, worst of all, millions
of lives have been sacrificed in the wrangles, quarrels and dis-
putes which have arisen through its questing. To the multitude,
this search after the incomprehensible has worked like some
deadly drug. To them it has invoked false dawns to still-born
days. To them, for a moment, it has shattered darkness, it
has tantalized them with unreachable things — fraternity and
the death of strife ; it has shown them the squalor and sordid-
ness of their surroundings, and then it has left them, dazzled
and squinting, with the meanness of their thoughts, the small-
ness of their hearts, and the impotence of their souls, to scramble
back into the night which knows no dawn, breathing profane
words and groping after moonbeams and shadows.

The absolute may be " The Pearl of Great Price "...
The Stone of the Wise "... or " The Lamp of Illimitable

Prologue 3

Light." For the great it may be the " Universal Solvent,"
but for the multitude, and the world is made up of multitudes,
it is with the rush-light of common-sense that we must seek
to guide humankind, lest they be utterly blinded. For them,
progress is not to be sought for in the solution of some infinite
equation, but in the banishing of phantoms and the pricking
of many-coloured bubbles ; for each man carries about with
him a book of lies — his preconceived thoughts, and lives in a
world shackled by Euclidian lines — his fears and prejudices.
Each word must be rewritten, each line dissolved, and he who
can replace " length without breadth " by a cobweb, frees
humanity until the web be broken. Slavery is the self -damna-
tion of the credulous, and it must ever be remembered that
most men are mental malingerers.

In the philosophy of common-sense, the goal is contentment,
and, to the multitude, this goal is symbolized by health and
happiness. Hitherto, so I feel, the great peace and war thinkers
have given to the crowd speculations and uncertainties, vocifera-
tions and the ululation of words, full of meaning to them-
selves, possibly, but unintelligible to their servants : sterile
words, words which cannot sprout or wax, inert words without
blood or sap, cold words without warmth or fire. Words
which, being either not understood or misinterpreted, cause
wrangles, arguments and quarrelling — truly unbalanced things
and, therefore, contrary to common-sense which aims at an
equilibrium of reason and action.

To the masses of humankind there are three happinesses
in this world — sex, food and freedom. " Kiss, eat and do as
we like." Thus, towards the abbey of Theleme do they wend
their way, bickering about things spiritual and material, their
very longings being filled with the itch of war. They pluck
dead fruit and in anger they turn on one another, one saying :
" What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and yet lose
his soul," and another with blasphemy replying : "A pair
of boots is more important than all your Madonnas."* Thus

* " Memoirs of a Revolutionary," Krapotkin, vol. ii. 86.

4 The Reformation of War

are the masses rent, one side seeking some infinite desire, and
the other some finite balsam. Thus, between the absolutism
of both is the grist and chaff of life ground into war. Propor-
tion is lost ; there is no give or take ; life grows rigid, laughter
ceases, one side cries " vice " and the other " virtue." The
veil of the temple of peace is rent, and behind it grins the god
of war — that panic mystery of progress.

Common-sense merely shifts these points of view, bringing
them within one focus. Vice is the salt which gives life its savour
— true ! Like a patch on a girl's cheek, it accentuates a beauty
which is not its own. Vice, in fact, is the spur which sets virtue
in motion.* The savour of life is its virtue, and yet this savour is
far from being the mere salt, which, of itself, leads to unquenchable
desire. The common-sense man does not inveigh against vice or
exalt virtue ; when contentment does not exist, and discontent
is war, he harmonizes these two. He does not seek a universal
balsam, but a human anointment by an integration and agree-
ment ; not an absolute truth, but an equation of circumstances
which will be true — that is, will be righteous as long as these cir-
cumstances exist. He seeks the best at any given moment and
not the best for ever. He is the arbitrator, and, like a good judge,
he is so rare a being that, once he has harmonized one set of
differences, he should not be allowed to take root ; he has his
circuit and should journey from one discontent to another, so
that his energies may never slacken and ever find new worlds to
conquer.

In war common-sense plays a similar part. If peace be called
virtuous and war vicious, then it is in the harmonization of their
differences and not in the permanent state of either that a solu-
tion to righteousness must be sought. To understand this
righteousness we must understand what peace and war entail.

* " Vice, crime, disease, decay and death are just as natural and necessary
events as virtue, health, growth and life ; ever present processes that are kept
in check while evolution is in full vigour, they will increase when it has reached
and passed its height : their presence and functions now are the augury of a
larger presence and function some day." — " The Pathology of Mind," Henry
Maudsley, p. 192.

Prologue 5

We must understand man as man, and the contentedness and
discontentedness of man as human and not as metaphysical
problems. To-day we stand at the parting of the ways, behind
us lingers an old-world conception rooted in the events symbo-
lized by " 1815." In front of us is cast the shadow of a new era
which, in its time, will be symbolized by " 1918." Both were
conceived in peace, both were born in war. Nations must either
move or perish, they dare not wait for miracles to reincarnate
them, for to wait is to paralyse the will to act. This will is the
true wand of the magician, that sceptre of common-sense which
rules the orb of human reason.

Thoughtful reader, common-sense has been my rush-light, it
has lit my path through the chaos of past wars and, by the glimmer
of its flickering flame, I have attempted to peer down the rugged
track of future warfare, that track which at some uncertain day
to come will once again loom into a great highway of strife along
which will tramp those legions yet unborn. How wends the
trail, what of the country it traverses ? Is it mountainous or
rocky, wooded or a region of swamps ? And what of those yet
distant warriors, are they armed as to-day, are they of the past or
for the future ? Have they common-sense emblazoned on their
standards, or do they advance under the faded banners of tradi-
tion ? Are their actions adapted to the circumstances which
will then confront them ? Do they aspire after miracles, or
drunken are they on the valour of ignorance, or are they equipped
with that unshakable confidence begotten of imagination and
nurtured by foresight ? These, in all modesty, for learning has
made me doubtful, are some of the questions I shall attempt to
answer. The book now opens : fare thee well !

THE ORIGINS OF WAR

THE philosophy of war and the philosophy of life are but
synonyms for that system of knowledge which resolves
human phenomena into their causes by an analysis of the struggle
for existence. This struggle, though science differentiates
between organic and inorganic, eventually finds its source in the
molecular and atomic energies of matter and in the energy of the
ether itself. Beyond these, human understanding, at present,
is unable to penetrate.

We start with the known, the world as we think it to be, as it
has seemed to us and is likely to continue to seem ; we travel
into the unknown, yet ever before us and behind us hang the
curtains of the unknowable, distant in places, close touching
here and there. Through these we cannot see, even with the
eyes of uttermost imagination. Though war and the struggle for
existence may cease, could we but penetrate this veil, all our
inferences so far go to prove that, on this side of it, war is an
ultimate factor in Nature as she reveals herself to us through the
limitations of the human mind.

We think we can, symbolically, picture to ourselves a state of
complete inertia, just as we think we can picture to ourselves the
shape of a fourth dimensional figure, but, in reality, such a state
is incomprehensible, though in some form or another it is innate
in every human heart. The religiously minded seek the life
eternal, where there is no marriage or giving in marriage ; in
other words, no duality ; likewise the city clerk he also seeks,
even if an inadequate, }ret a fixed wage so that he may be relieved

6

The Origins of War 7

from the horror of plus and minus quantities. Thus, throughout
life itself, do we see on the one side a desire for rest, and on the
other a desire for activity in order that rest may some day be
accomplished.

I will postulate that we do start with inertia, the unknowable ;
then, let us picture to ourselves, how we cannot say, that an
activity is begotten within it : this activity then is war, whatever
may be its complexion, for it will produce within inertia, a vibra-
tion, a disruption, a tearing and rending asunder. Henceforth,
we have a duality — tendencies towards rest and tendencies
towards activity, stability and mobility, a clash between these
two in the ether, in matter and in life. Thus has the roar of war
deafened the uttermost limits of eternity before the stars twinkled
or the sun shone, and, as far as the human mind can fathom, is
likely to resound through these abysmal depths until the uni-
versal blankness of inaction covers the infinite with its pall of
perfect peace.

This desire for peace, and for the peace which passeth under-
standing, is innate in the heart of man : " anything for a quiet
life," is the cry of the millions which surround us. It forms
their spiritual goal, which is quite unattainable since Eve ate of
the apple — henceforth " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground." Allegory though this
may be, Eden is not of this life, for, though the lion may be
brought to lie down with the lamb, the struggle for existence will
still continue. Lambs will go on nibbling the young grass, and
lions will die of indigestion, and the world will be peopled with
gambolling foolish folk who, eventually, will find their normal
level through the horrors of over-production. Thus does Nature
instil the battle in one form or another in order, presumably, to
improve the stock, so that the curse of Eden may be accomplished.

Though the desire of man is peace, the law of life is war ; the
fittest, mentally or bodily, survive, and the less fit supply them
with food, labour and service. Life lives on life ; look around
and see if this be not true, and though the majority of human
kind has given up cannibalism, many are still meat eaters ;

8 The Reformation of War

nevertheless, quite possibly the flesh of animals may also, some
day, become revolting to the palate, and men may even gasp
with horror at the idea of boiling a turnip. The advent of syn-
thetic food will, however, in no way alter the law of life, though
it may change the convolutions of the intestines ; for operate
this law must, in the pulsations of the amoeba and in the vibra-
tions of the highest mind of that super-race with whom, for nearly
three thousand years, we have been persistently threatened by
revolutionaries — yet we remain human, ever and always human,
and this is the keystone in the arch of our philosophy.

Thus it will be seen that the pendulum of life swings between
two extremes — fear and love, and though man desires rest, the
hand which holds the balance has ordained that he must seek it
through activity. Man possesses no right to live, but solely
might to kill and so to preserve life ; this is his one great birth-
right which holds good not only for primitive man but for human
society as it is organized to-day ; for do not we find that, in most
countries, in order to curb this might, the penalty is death, that
is the very exercise of it, or imprisonment for life, which is but a
delayed execution at the public expense ?

True, man desires life, for it is sweet to live ; he desires life,
and though there can be no right in this desire, it is the strongest
of his instincts, the instinct of self-preservation — the ultimate
source of all human sorrow and of all human joy. This instinct
urges him to protect his life, to preserve it, to link his life with
that of woman, to duplicate their lives in the lives of their children
and to protect this duplication. In the family, primaeval or of
to-day, there is a human right — protection, which in its turn, like
an arch, rests on the abutments of physical strength and mental
cunning. The stronger survive through brute strength, and the
more cunning through craft ; thus begins that interminable
struggle between muscle and mind which is the mainspring of all
progress.

In the primitive family man is the hunter, he has but one
object in life — to kill ; to kill for food, to kill for warmth and to
kill for protection ; his impulse is purely an active one. With

The Origins of War 9

woman it is otherwise, her desires are not active but restful.
In place of killing, her will is to preserve life. She prepares the
food supplied to her by her husband, the hunter ; she suckles
her children, she fashions the home. Habit teaches her order,
from order emerge customs and laws. In her long lonely vigils,
while her man is on his bloody quest, she dreams, and from her
dreams are born the gods, and from the contemplation of her
children, as they roll in the grass at her feet, is conceived the
stupendous vision of immortality.

In the family is born the spirit of co-operation, that working
together for the common good through an integration of ideas
and by a division of labour. Then families struggle with
families, conquer and coalesce, and tribes emerge and are welded
into nations. And, when history opens her gloomy portals,
there stands War — the god of creative destruction, that grim
synthetic iconoclast.

I will now examine this struggle, not from the point of view
of the so-called " Realities of War," so frequently described by
shell-shocked war correspondents, but from that pivotal point —
the human instincts.

All human activities are ultimately girt by a mysticism
unfathomable to the reason, which may only be sensed by a vague
irrational intuition. The mentality of the great captain is
difficult to analyse ; frequently, he is a student, but study
alone will not create him ; frequently, he is inordinately brave,
but neither will courage alone differentiate him from the herd.
Possibly he is but the focal-point of his epoch, fashioned by the
very circumstances which he eventually controls by fusing
with them his own creative power. Identifying his power with
that of his age, he concentrates it and wields the new creation
like a weapon ; conjuring forth the primal instincts always latent
in man, he leashes and unleashes them, and men follow his touch,
harnessed as they are to his will and he to theirs. This awaken-
ing of the primitive instincts is one of the most mysterious
forces in war, a force which, if understood, will show that either
wars are inevitable, or that the excitement which goes to engender

io The Reformation of War

them must, during peace time, find a healthy outlet if they are
to be kept in leash.

The dormant instincts in man, once let loose, normally
crystallize round a leader, who, in the eyes of his followers, becomes
a super-man, a power to be venerated. During life his creative
mind controls them, but, when dead, his spirit petrifies, and
what was once the focal-point of individual energy becomes
the static tombstone of collective idolatry. An image is raised ;
though called by his name it is soulless, it breathes no new word,
neither can it move, for it is lifeless, it is but a make-
belief.

Round this image congregate the priests of the cult of war ;
their words are his words, but his words are dead words, words
of the past, which now bear little relationship to truth, who never
stays her onward step. Doctrines grow into idolatrous dogmas,
so that the worship of idols replaces the belief in living things.
It is thus that nations are destroyed through the crystallization
of ideas in traditions and stagnation of effort due to lethargy
of thought.

From the military aspect, such idolatry as this does not only
mean unprogressiveness in the science and art of war, but also
aggressiveness towards indulging in war, this aggressiveness
being due to two main causes :

(i.) The valour of ignorance of the nation.

(ii.) The barbaric stimulus of the army.

The first is due to a lack of power to control policy. Nations
are always competitors, especially great civilized nations, and,
consequently, the weaker is forced to accept the will of the stronger,
and, when the weaker happens to be a prosperous and wealthy
nation, this acceptance of the will of the stronger, and sometimes
less prosperous, is irritating. So much so is this the case that
the weaker, not being able to adjust by force the balance to its
favour, resorts to craft. Craft leads to secrecy, and secrecy to
suspicion and discontent, which frequently lead to an open
quarrel between the parties concerned, the one not knowing the
intention of the other.

The Origins of War 11

If we now examine modern history, we shall find that, though
military might has sometimes detonated wars, the most prevalent
detonator has been diplomacy ; craftiness and especially diplo-
macy which attempts to make good a deficiency of power by an
excess of duplicity, for this type of craftiness ends in contempt.
Diplomacy in its turn is spurred on by national ambitions which,
in a wealthy nation, are many and complex. These, even though
unsupported by power, breed among the ignorant masses a
valour based on the ignorance of the requirements of war and,
frequently, force diplomacy to offer veiled or open threats,
though the diplomatists themselves fully realize that this process
can only succeed through bluff, and if their opponent pays to see
the hand, seeing it he will laugh and most certainly take the
pool. A nation, even more so than an individual, is sensitive
to ridicule, for the masses possess little wit, and it is ridicule,
in its various simple and complex forms, which is a sure irritant
of war.

As the first is due to a lack in the equilibration of power
between two or more nations, so is the second due to the existence
of a hiatus between the mentalities of the nation and its army.
National progress seldom can be stayed even by the will of the
majority, because, on account of competition, an evolution of
the old hunting spirit, the minority, by compulsion the thinking
(more crafty) section of the community, can seldom be brought
to concentrate wilfully on its own destruction. Its tendency,
anyhow, is to live and not to die. It frequently arises, however,
especially in prosperous nations, that the national will to hunt
for wealth is so great that it monopolizes all their efforts, and,
consequently, that little thought is given to the maintenance
and protection of their wealth through military action. In
these circumstances, an army, which should be of the nation,
becomes separated from it. It develops into a caste, and, being
neither looked upon with affection nor cared for, it loses pace
in the race of national progress and becomes barbaric by growing
out of date. Then, when diplomacy fails, and the national
equilibrium is upset by insult or ridicule, the nation, which is

12 The Reformation of War

ever a heterogeneous crowd swayed by its primitive instincts,
receives its impulse from its army and its military leaders ;
this impulse being mainly subconscious. Reacting by suggestion
on the crowd mind, it detonates war even before the nation is
prepared to accept it, and the result is, frequently, a disaster.

A barbaric army, that is, one separated in intellect from the
nation to which it belongs, is an incentive to war without being
an efficient weapon wherewith to wage it. Civilization cannot
safely progress under the protection of such a force ; consequently,
all that goes to build up the mentality of a nation must go to
build up the mentality of its army. These two must be one in
mind, one in soul and one in body, though this does not necessarily
mean that the whole nation must consist of drilled soldiers, but
that the soldiers and civilians, in thought and progress, are
living in one camp.

The pathology of war may be traced to a decay in or retard-
ation of the mystic impulses which, springing from the instinct
of self-preservation, control the destinies of nations. The true
might of a nation is to be sought for not so much in the strength
or perfection of its army, which is but the means of materializing
this might, but in the health of its spirit, that is its will to preserve
itself from dangers internal and external. This spirit or vitality,
so necessary to its existence, finds its outlet through the two
primitive instincts of hunting and breeding. Hunting evolves
into the pursuit of commerce, which, when stabilized in a civilized
State, becomes labour without excitement. The natural plea-
sures of life are denied, cramped and crushed, day in and day out,
by a monotonous routine. The stimulus of the hunt being absent,
the body becomes lethargic and the mind dulled by a grim
monotony. When such a state eclipses the soul of a nation,
the primitive instincts gather in stormy clouds. Then man's
mind broods and is filled with the gloom of discontent ; he
becomes nomadic in spirit, the old desire of the forests and
the jungle is awakened in his soul, it flames forth like some
subtle lightning, and there is war. The pent-up instincts have
flashed forth, man is once again the healthy heathen, the roamer

The Origins of War 13

over the mountains and the reveller in the mists. The intoxi-
cation of the chase is upon him, the instincts of millions of years
are unleashed. He is freed for a space from the fear of death.
Now for the nation is there glory in death, in self-sacrifice and
renunciation, as there was once glory for man in risking his life
in the winning of his mate and in the protection of his family
and his lair.

To reduce life to a gt Dmetric figure, with its Euclidian laws,
its parallels which never meet and its mathematical lines and
points, is not only to suppose that life is an inert substance,
but that humanity is governed by reason, which it most certainly
is not. For, if it be the exception rather than the rule for any
two rational individuals to agree on any one argument, how
much more so is not this the case when opinions are being dis-
cussed collectively ? Reason is indeed a potent faculty of the
mind, but it is only one of a number of potent faculties, all of
which ultimately are swayed by the primitive instincts. Further,
it is the first to volatilize directly the stimulus of fear is applied
to the sympathetic minds of a crowd of persons.

The more geometric the life of a nation becomes, the more
are its instincts and desires pent up, and the more do they attempt
to find some outlet for their vigour. During the Middle Ages
the greater part of Europe was shrouded under a religious pall,
and the horror of the static state rested on the Western World
like a huge coffin lid. Had not crime and cruelty given an outlet
to man's natural appetites, the world would have gone mad ;
as it was, it was half insane ; and only war and brutality prevented
it becoming totally so. To-day, we possess religious freedom,
yet democracy, the new cult, is fast foisting on to us a static
organization. The State is replacing the Church, and State
domination must end in geometricity of thought and action,
the enslavement of the individual and the charging of the Leyden
cells of war. There can be nothing more appalling to the philo-
sopher than to watch the doctrines of those with universal
brotherhood on their lips, percolating through society like water
through a rock, when it is apparent, by universal inference, that

14 The Reformation of War

these doctrines will one day solidify and break the nations
saturated with them into a thousand fragments.

To restrict the ravages of the worst of all wars, namely,
civil war, which is a crime against Nature, since in place of pre-
serving national existence it destroys it, there is implanted in
the heart of man an impulse which directs the energies of all
progressive nations externally against those which surround
them. This impulse is the first cause of organized wars ; it is
the instinct of self-preservation seeking security by establishing
unattackable frontiers. In primitive times a tribe could only
feel secure when the tribes surrounding it were less powerful
than itself ; if equally powerful, then warfare was incessant
until the strongest gained inter-tribal supremacy. To-day it
is much the same, strong nations cannot tolerate strong nations
as neighbours, and are only deterred from attacking them if
the balance of international power is against them. Their
impulse of self-preservation bids them extend their frontiers
to impassable or easily defensible obstacles, or else to nations
so inferior in military strength to their own, that they have
nothing to fear. In the case of England, in spite of her secure
frontiers — the sea, this impulse is constantly active. Her
history is free from serious revolutions, because the hunting
spirit of her people expended itself in adventure, such as that
which led Drake around the globe. Cromwell, though the child
of revolution, in his wisdom so completely directed this spirit
externally that no revolution of a serious character has since
his day occurred in England. For self-preservation, England's
frontiers are the sea coasts of other nations, and, when land
frontiers are impossible to avoid, she has nearly always attempted
to protect them by the creation or maintenance of weak buffer
States.

The second great cause of war is in nature economic. In
primitive times, pillage, or the killing of one man by another
for personal gain was a common act. As civilization advances,
this personal act is replaced by a tribal or racial act of war.
A tribe is killed off and its belongings taken, and, if its land be

The Origins of War 15

annexed or occupied, in nature, such a war becomes organized,
since permanent garrisons are created. Thus far the natural
history of the primitive form of war, evolving into the organized,
is simple. Not so, however, its evolution through the psycholo-
gical channels. To steal a man's meat undoubtedly calls, in
a primitive people, for vengeance ; so also does any detraction
from a man's prowess, for it lowers him in the eyes of his family
and so attacks him psychologically by wounding his vanity.
To degrade a neighbouring tribe to serfdom or slavery is to attack
it psychologically on wholesale lines. If the tribe be effete, it
will probably die out ; if virile, it will probably rebel and attempt
to purge itself of its masters and so regain its former freedom.
The same applies to the enslavement of nations, and in order to
obviate such a catastrophe, nations raise armies to protect
them against so oppressive a fate.

As a war of vengeance generally originates from a war of
pillage, so does a war of purgation normally arise from an act of
conquest, and conquest, in its modern sense, may be viewed
under three economic headings.

(i.) The conquest of land in order to obtain raw material.

(ii.) The conquest of man-power in order to manufacture
commodities.

(hi.) The conquest of free markets in order to sell commo-
dities.

All three of these types of conquest may be accomplished
without the clash of steel, just as the enslavement of a weak tribe
by a strong may be accomplished by fear or by a moral threat.
But, if the original owners of the land, the man-power enslaved, or
the possessors of the markets, are virile, bloodless though these
conquests may be, they frequently lead to the most bloody of
wars of- purgation, because conquest generally carries with it a
restriction of the primitive hunting instinct in the conquered.

From the national standpoint, a war of conquest has nothing
whatever to do with right or wrong, for Nature knows nothing of
morality, unless morality be defined as race survival. Efficient

16 The Reformation of War

races conquer and enjoy their conquests, just as efficient hunters
kill and enjoy their prey. So also are effete races conquered, and,
should they be eaten up, they deserve their fate. If they can,
however, overthrow their conquerers then equally do they deserve
their liberation. A race which submits to slavery is a race the
virility of which has grown sterile. Nature abhors a mental
eunuch as fervently as she abhors a physical vacuum.

Great nations are born in war, because war is the focal-point
of national concentration ; great nations decay in peace, because
peace is the circumference of the circle the centre of which is this
focal-point — the greater the diameter or time the greater the
danger resulting.

From the material aspect of war, chiefly through the sexual
instinct, is evolved a nebulous and later on a fixed psychological
character. Man has to win his mate by being the strongest of his
sex ; should his strength fail him, he must resort to craft, which is
synonymous to insulting the strength or abilities of his opponent
by taking what might to-day be called a mean advantage of
him. He lurks in the bushes or in the shadows of night and assas-
sinates, rather than fights his competitor. Such a type of attack,
from the physiological standpoint of the survival of the fittest, is
revolting to the strong, and it must be remembered that it is the
physiological aspect of war which is always the most prominent
in man's mind. Such an act as this is " unsportsmanlike," it is
comparable to shooting a fox in a hunting county, or attacking a
lion with a machine-gun in a game preserve. It cries for ven-
geance, for, if it succeed, there will be scant protection for the
offspring of even the strongest. From the wars of muscle against
muscle is thus evolved the war of brain against brain, in the form
of personal vengeance. The antagonist is not killed for his be-
longings, but in order to get rid of him as an individual and later
on as a public nuisance. Vengeance grows into morality, which
may be defined as : that state of existence which best enables
the individuals composing society to live peacefully together.
Morality is not an instinct but a compromise ; from it evolves
legislation, which metes out punishment to those who injure

The Origins of War 17

peaceful race survival. As politics are dependent on the will of
the majority, a will which is never for long stable, to endeavour
to establish an international code of laws on a footing similar to
that of national legal codes is to attempt the impossible, for with-
out political power the legislation of politically irresponsible
courts is valueless ; for political power is based on the will of the
majority of a nation, which, in its turn, is governed by the in-
stinct of national preservation.

The evolution of wars of vengeance is exceedingly intricate.
First, they are pursued to avenge personal injury, the theft of
another man's belongings — his flint arrow-heads or his wife.
Secondly, to avenge the theft of his sentiments — slander against
his person or the deprivation of the affection of some woman.
As such, wars of vengeance are as common to-day as 50,000
years ago. Thirdly, they develop into protecting the race
from insult and depredation, and, when races depend for their
existence upon commerce, they direct their efforts against dis-
honest and underhand practices. Fourthly, they develop into
avenging insults directed against the political and religious
systems of nations, and here we find vengeance based on a multi-
tude of capricious ideas. The Arian schism hinged on the word
" Homoousios," and a war between England and Spain, in 1739,
on the severance of an ear. These pretexts cannot be considered
as real causes of war, but rather as the detonators of the pent-up
hunting instinct in man which has been tamped down by arti-
fice. Society may be likened to a permanent powder magazine
formed of innumerable sentiments. When these are scattered
and far spaced, the danger of explosion is small, but when con-
centrated one spark may lift the roof off a generation.

In all these phases of war, wrhether slow- and internal or
rapid and external, whether directed against individuals or
nations, whether military or commercial, the sum total of horror
is purely relative to the state of the sentiments of the day — they
are dynamite or crude black powder ! Thus a war, to-day,
between the Americans and Japanese, waged in order to obtain
human flesh for food, would freeze the blood in the heart of every

2

18 The Reformation of War

European outside Russia, even if it resulted in only a few dozen
people being eaten. After prolonged periods of absence from a
certain condition, its occurrence becomes a novelty, a new
creation which appals the inert mind. Such minds can find no
comparison wherewith to measure the cataclysm, though, if these
minds were by nature introspective, they would realize that, as
science has ameliorated the conditions of peace, so equally can
science ameliorate the manners of war.

In war, novelties of an atavistic nature are generally horrible ;
nevertheless, in the public mind, their novelty is their crime ;
consequently, when novelties of a progressive character are in-
troduced on the battlefield, the public mind immediately anathe-
matizes them, not necessarily because they are horrible but be-
cause they are new. Nothing insults a human being more than
an idea his brains are incapable of creating. Such ideas detract
from his dignity for they belittle his understanding. In April,
1915, a few hundred British and French soldiers were gassed to
death ; gas being a novelty, Europe was transfixed with horror.
In the winter of 1918-1919, the influenza scourge accounted for
over 10,000,000 deaths, more than the total casualties in killed
throughout the whole of the Great War ; yet the world scarcely
twitched an eyelid, though a few people went so far as to sniff
eucalyptus.

One of the main arguments against armies is their futility ;
but, if this be true, this argument can with equal force be
directed against peaceful organizations ; for surely it is just as
futile to keep vast numbers of a nation on the brink of starvation
and prostitution, as happens in nearly all civilized countries
to-day, as it is to keep an insignificant minority of this same nation
on the brink of war.

Human nature, fortunately, is not changed by wild illogical
statements or even by logical comparisons. Petronius Arbiter,
eighteen hundred years ago, wrote in his Satyricon :

" As for Trimalchio, he has as much land as a kite can fly over,
he has heaps upon heaps of money. There is more silver lying in
his porter's lodge than another man's whole estate is worth. And,

The Origins of War 19

as for slaves, wheugh ! by Hercules, I do not believe one tenth of
them know their own master."

Substitute factory hands for slaves, and the Rome of Nero is
not very different from the England of Tennyson :

" Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by,
When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together each sex, like swine :
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie ;
Peace in her vineyard — yes ! but a company forges the wine."

This, say you, has all been changed, democracy has to-day
unhovelled the multitudes, and Socialism is offering to the world
a new and beautiful future. This future is, however, nothing
more than a mirage of the past — material gain and greed, eagerly
grasped at by the hungry. I will quote again :

' Why do we prate of the blessings of Peace ? We have made them a

curse ;
Pick pockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own ;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone ?
But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind,
When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his

word ?
Is it peace or war ? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind
The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword."

In spite of the shrieking peace-mongers, the fact is that the
state of peace is the state of war, and the horror of peace is the
horror of war ; this may not be rational, but it is, nevertheless,
true, true even if history be only but an indifferent witness. It
is here that we merge into the purgative character of wars of
vengeance — fevers begotten by communistic social rule, which
restricts the outlet of man's natural appetites. Wars of revolu-
tion are caused by despotism, the worst form of which is com-
munism, not only the communism of the gutter but the com-
munism of bureaucratic government. All men are proclaimed
or treated as equal, the law of the survival of the fittest is ab-
rogated in a mist of words and in a flow of ink ; the struggle for
existence is abolished, and the immediate result is that it asserts
itself in its most brutal forms. Sentiments group themselves and

2*

20 The Reformation of War

concentrate, and the magazine of society becomes sensitive to
combustion at the slightest moral shock.

Philosophically, there can be no end to war as long as there is
life or motion, for the very elements struggle in ceaseless combina-
tions and, as far as we can at present judge, will continue to
struggle until the crack of doom. The greatest world-war which
our globe ever experienced was a bloodless one ; it occurred
millions of centuries ago, when the earth, then an incandescent
cloud of gas, tore itself away from the sun its mother and with
flaming caul proclaimed its identhvy. From this great war all
others have originated and will continue to evolve progressively,
ever tending towards some unknown goal.

Modern wars are, in the main, progressive in nature, for they
sweep aside obsolete laws and customs which have lost their
meaning and spur men awake to the realities of life, so that they
may cease for awhile dreaming of life's little troubles. To pro-
hibit wars of conquest, if such a prohibition were possible, and to
permit wars of purgation would end in a universal catastrophe.
If rigidly adhered to, such a policy would lead to complete isola-
tion of each separate nation, to an end of commerce and an end to
the exchange of ideas. Such a state is inconceivable, and human
wars, it is thought, as the Buddhists proclaim of sorrow, can only
cease with a cessation of desire.

Henry Maudslej^, the eminent psychologist, accentuates this
very clearly in this book " The Pathology of Mind," when he
writes :

" Have not nations owed their formation as much to brotherly
hate as to brotherly love — more perhaps to the welding consolida-
tion enforced by the pressure of hostile peoples than to the attractive
forces of their components ? And what is the spur of commerce
but competition ? War in one shape or another, open or disguised,
has plainly been the divinely appointed instrument of human progress,
carnage the immoral-seeming means by which the slow incarnation
of morality in mankind has been effected.

When we look at facts sincerely as they are, not satisfied to rest
in a void of speculative idealism and insincerity, we perceive that
in every department of life the superior person uses his superior
powers to the inevitable detriment of the inferior person, even

The Origins of War 21

though he may afterwards dispense benevolently out of his super-
fluity to some of those who fall by the wayside. The moral law
only works successfully as a mean between two extremes, excess
of either being alike fatal. He who aspires to love his neighbour
as himself must at the same time take care to love himself as his
neighbour, making himself his neighbour while he makes his neigh-
bour himself ; his right duty being to cultivate not a suicidal self-
sacrifice which would be a crime against self, but just that self-
sacrifice which is the wisest self-interest and just that self-interest
which is the wisest self-sacrifice. So he obtains the utmost develop-
ment of self within the limits of the good of the whole. He will
not go very far in morality if he compound for lack of self-renuncia-
tion on his part by a special indulgence of his own self-love in
dictating sacrifices to other people. Were men to carry the moral
law of self-sacrifice into rigorous and extreme effect they would
perish by the practice of their virtues. When they had succeeded
in eradicating competition, in making an equal distribution of
wealth, in prolonging the feeblest life to its utmost tether, in banish-
ing strife and war from the earth, in bringing all people on it to so
sheep-like a placidity of nature that they would no more hurt and
destroy, and to such an ant-like uniformity of industrious well-
doing that no one would work for himself but every one for all,
they would have robbed human nature of its springs of enterprise
and reduced it to a stagnant state of decadence. A millennium
of blessed bees or industrious ants ! For it is the progress of desire
and the struggle to attain which keeps the current of human life
moving and wholesome alike in individuals, in societies, and in
nations. Not to go forward is to go back, and not to move at all
is death."

If progress be rendered impossible, only two other courses
are open to humanity : stagnation or retrogression. The first
means war, as we know it to-day, and the second, war as it was
known in the past. Retrogression can only lead to one goal,
the goal we started from, a sliding back into the brute, in which
process of retirement we shall have to pass through all past
phases of human warfare until, naked and unarmed, we tear
each other to pieces with our nails.

To weep and gnash our teeth over preparations for war,
because they cost so much, is but a symptom of decadence.
" How can we afford these ships or these armies ? ' This is
the whine of a small householder and not the cry of a virile
nation. Neolithic man wept similar tears, no doubt, over his

22 The Reformation of War

arrow-heads. " How can I afford all these days chipping
this wretched flint, my bod}' aches for food and my brood is
starving ? ' He did afford those days, and had he not done
so, his race would have been exterminated. Nature cares
nothing for the sweat of man's brow or the leanness of his purse ;
nations must, therefore, not only afford to survive but must
will to do so. If some war commodity be beyond the national
means or the national powers of labour, nations must not cease
in their efforts or rely on second-rate weapons, but, instead,
they must either increase their powers of labour or substitute
for these costly weapons cheaper and more effective ones. The
nations which can accomplish this survive ; those which can-
not— perish. Nature tolerates no unearned rest : " In the
sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread," this is her irrevocable
dictum. There is no permanent rest for humanity. Forwards
lie the pains of growth, backwards the agony of decomposition.
To stand still is to rot. The Saurians are dead and gone, yet
the little ant survives and multiplies.

As to the functions of the State, the State should remain
inert, that is to say it should so govern a nation that equal
opportunity for the evolution of all creative and receptive
brains is rendered possible. This is not communism, which aims
at assisting the weak, but race survival, which aims at assist-
ing the strongest to forge ahead through the agency of
a virile competition. It has little to do with the distribution
of wealth, but everything to do with the Catholicism of health.
Some will continue to be born rich and some poor ; nevertheless,
it should be a national point of honour that no stone be left
unturned which will enable all to be born strong, and to be
provided with equal opportunities of education, of marriage
and of law. The function of the State is to level the social
tilting ground for the national tourney between thought and
action ; to see that for either side it is free from pitfalls, and
that there is no hitting below the belt. As long as the State
does not produce this condition of impartial inertia, so long
will wars of purgation arise and lead to wars of conquest. When

The Origins of War 23

all States do produce it, as unsentimentally as a judge adminis-
ters justice, then indeed may collective acts of brigandage
become as infrequent as their individual counterparts. Bellona
will not have ceased to be, but she will have changed her com-
plexion from a tawny red to a leprous grey. Battlefields will
become bloodless, and the agony of muscle will be replaced by
the agony of mind. To drive a nation mad may then quite
possibly be considered a superb victory. Thus does civiliza-
tion stride forward on the stepping stones of death and madness
towards life and the fullness of life, until her path is lost in the
gloom of an inscrutable future.

Be this as it may, " the will to live " is the ultimate horizon
of her philosophy. Far distant ma}/ this circumference grow
in ever increasing circles, but, in the centre of these, squats
their originator, a shadowy form, all but indiscernible to the
philosopher, totally unseen by those filled with windy words :
the form of primitive man, gorged on the flesh of his prey and
basking in the sun.

II

THE SCIENCE AND ART OF WAR

HAVING now analysed the soul of war and, rightfy or
wrongly, having assumed that wars in one form or
another are inevitable, in this Chapter I will examine the science
and art of the mind and body of this subject. I do so because,
when we come to consider the future tendencies of war, not
only is it important to realize that future warfare must be an
evolution of present and past warfare, but that all forms of war-
fare are founded on a common science.

From a cursory study of military history, a student might
well be deluded into believing that war is so closely related to
the roulette table as to be classed as a veritable game of chance.
What does he see ? The efforts of many noted generals who have
been either gamblers pure and simple, or else keen but inept
dabblers in dark sciences. These, he soon finds, have worked
much like the alchemists of the Middle Ages, who sought for
perpetual motion, the universal solvent, the philosopher's
stone and the elixir of life, in mixtures compounded of dragon's
blood, grated unicorn's horn and the marrow of consecrated
cats.

Even in the Great War of 1914-1918 we can discover few
scientific reasons for the innumerable actions fought, no firmer
basis than Marshal Saxe could discover in his day when he
wrote :

" War is a science so obscure and imperfect that, in general, no
rules of conduct can be given in it which are reducible to absolute
certainties ; custom and prejudice, confirmed by ignorance, are its
sole foundations and support."

24

The Science and Art of War 25

The armies of 1914 were imitators of past methods of war-
fare, for they had been fed on past battles. Science does not
imitate, for science unravels and creates.

What is science ? Science is co-ordinated knowledge, facts
arranged according to their values, or to put it more briefly still
and to quote Thomas Huxley, science is " organized common
sense . . . the rarest of all the senses."

War is as much a science as all other human activities, and,
like all other sciences, it is built upon facts, of which there are
an innumerable quantity. From these facts may we extract
the elements of war and the principles of war and the conditions
of war — the circumstances in which the principles must be
brought to govern the elements.

What is the simplest possible type of human warfare ? A
fight between two unarmed men. What is their object ? To
impose their wills upon each other. How do they accomplish
this ? By giving blows without receiving them or the fewest
possible number. In these words have we completely laid bare
the essential nature of the fight, in fact we have discovered
the pivotal problem in the science of war — the destruction of
the enemy's strength (physical or moral), which not only embraces
his army but the whole of his nation, and which constitutes
the crucial problem in the art of war : " how to kill,
disable, or capture without being killed, disabled, or
captured."*

In war we start with man, the author of all human strife.
To defeat his adversary he must will to do so, he must move
towards him, he must hit him and he must prevent himself
from being hit, or, otherwise, he may fail to impose his will,
which is enforced and protected by his actions.

Man, in himself, may be compared to the ether, out of which
the other elements are evolved. In war the physical elements
arising out of the body of man are : movement, weapons and
protection.

* This is the traditional problem. Later on I will show that for body should
be substituted mind.

26 The Reformation of War

Examining movement first, we and that, tactically, there
are two types : protective movements and offensive move-
ments ; the first I will denote by the term " approaches " and
the second by that of " attacks." In the former the one thought
of the soldier is "to prevent himself from being hit," and, in
the latter, " to hit his enemy." The more he can hit the less
he will be hit, consequently, indirectly though it may be, not
only is the whole action protective in character, but it becomes
more and more so as the offensive succeeds. From this it will be
at once seen that any idea of thinking of the offensive and the de-
fensive phases of war, battle or duel, as things in themselves apart,
is absurd ; for these two acts form the halves of the diameter
of the tactical circle, the circumference of which is the fight.
They are, in fact, the positive and negative poles of the tactical
magnet called battle.

Of weapons there are two types — hitting and hurling wea-
pons. The first I will call " shock weapons," such as the bayonet,
lance and sword, and the second " missile weapons," such as
arrows, bullets, and gas. As the tactical object of physical
battle is to destroy the enemy, which is best accomplished by
clinching with him, the infantryman's offensive weapon is the
bayonet and his bullet is his defensive weapon, on account of
its ability to protect the advance of the bayonet. Thus, we
see that, whenever two weapons of unequal range of action are
employed, the one of longer range is always the defensive weapon
and the one of shorter range the offensive one, and even if three
or more weapons be used, this holds equally good for all. From
this appreciation may be deduced a tactical rule of the highest
importance : In all circumstances missile weapons must
be emplo}^ed to facilitate or ward off the shock.

Protection, or the defensive, has little to do with holding
positions or beating back attacks, for it is just as much part
and parcel of every forward movement as of every holding
or retrograde one. I have alieady pointed out how the bullet
defends the bayonet and how the approach secures the attack
by lessening casualties when the soldier is advancing and not

The Science and Art of War 27

actually using his weapons. Both these forms of protection
are indirect, that is to say, they do not ward off blows but im-
pede blows from being delivered. Besides these indirect means
of protection, which include the use of camouflage and smoke
clouds, several direct means have frequently been employed,
such as armour, earthworks and fortifications. Under this
heading, to-day, must also be placed the anti-gas respirator.
Direct protection is such as will nullify the effect of blows.
Mobile direct protection is generally the most effective, for any
change in location necessitates a change in the enemy's tactical
organization, and consequently a loss of time for destructive
effect. When, as in a tank or battleship, mobile direct and
indirect protection can be combined, the highest form of security
is obtained ; this fact was all but unrealized in the last great
war, though a study of the art of war in the Middle Ages will
show that it formed the tactical backbone of the combat between
armoured knights.

I have already made mention of the fact that to imitate
is not necessarily to work scientifically. Science extracts
knowledge from the unknown by applying to it certain laws
which universal inference has established. Thus we have
the laws of gravitation, of causation and of evolution. War
has also its laws or principles, and they are to be found in the
duel as in the battle. As regards these principles of war there
has been much discussion of an unscientific nature. Before
the Great War of 1914-1918, every Field Service Regulations
made mention of principles of war and pointed out their im-
portance, but did not name them. The British Field Service
Regulations of 1914 stated : " The fundamental principles of
war are neither very numerous nor in themselves very abstruse,"
and then left the readers in complete doubt as to what they
were. Some twenty years ago Marshal, then Lieut. -Colonel,
Foch wrote a learned book on " The Principles of War," in which
he mentioned four, and then, apparently in doubt as regards
the remainder, placed " etc." at the end of this list.

There are eight principles of war, and they constitute the

28 The Reformation of War

laws of every scientifically fought boxing match as of every
battle. These principles are :

ist Principle. — The principle of the objective.
2nd Principle. — The principle of the offensive.
3rd Principle. — The principle of security.
4th Principle. — The principle of concentration.
5th Principle. — The principle of economy of force.
6th Principle. — The principle of movement.
7th Principle. — The principle of surprise.
8th Principle. — The principle of co-operation.

No one of the above eight principles is of greater value than
the other. No plan of action can be considered perfect unless
all are in harmony, and none can be considered in harmony
unless weighed against the conditions which govern their ap-
plication. Seldom can a perfect plan be arrived at because
the fog of war seldom, if ever, completely rises. It is, however,
an undoubted fact that the general who places his trust in the
principles of war, and who trusts in them the more strongly
the fog of war thickens, almost inevitably beats the general who
does not.

These principles are, in my opinion, of such importance, being
in fact the governors of war, that, as far as space will permit,
I will consider them in detail. First, then, what is the objective
in war ?

(i.) The Principle of the Objective. The object of a nation is
national preservation, which, in a civilized race, may be defined
as honourable, profitable and secure existence. Here we find
three sub-objectives, an ethical objective, an economic objective
and a military objective. These three combined I will call the
political objective or policy of the nation, the stability of which
depends on the will of the people.

In modern warfare it does not pay to outrage the sentiments
of the day, neither does it pay to destroy the economic resources
of the enemy. Consequently, when all peaceful methods of
settlement have broken down and a nation is reduced to military

The Science and Art of War 29

action in order to maintain or enforce its policy, its object should
be to impose its will with the least possible ethical and economic
loss not only to itself but to its enemies and to the world at
large. A nation which wins a war through foul play degrades
itself in the eyes of other nations and loses the trust of the world.
A nation which destroys the economic resources of its enemy,
destroys its eventual markets, and thus wounds itself.* War
must entail some loss, but the less this loss is the greater will
be the victory ; consequently, the military object of a nation is
not to kill and destroy, but to enforce the policy of its government
with the least possible loss of honour, life and property. If the
enemy can be compelled to accept the hostile policy without
battle, so much the better. If he opposes it by military force,
then it should never be forgotten that the strength of this force
rests on the will of the government which employs it, and that,
in its turn, this will rests on the will of the nation which this
government represents. If the will of the nation cannot directly
be attacked, then must the will of the army protecting it be
broken. In the past this will has been attacked by attacking
the flesh of soldiers, and, so consistent has this been, that the
idea has arisen that the military object of war is to kill and to
destroy. Thus, in the popular and military imaginations, the
means have obscured the end ; consequently, the prevailing
idea of all parties in the recent war was destruction, to destroy
each other, and so blinded were they by the means that they
could not see that in the very act they were destroying themselves,
not only during the war but in the peace which must some day
follow the war.

I believe that the world is slowly learning this lesson, and
that, as in my opinion wars are inevitable, the old idea of warfare
based on destruction will be replaced by a new military ideal, the
imposition of will at the least possible general loss. If this be

* It is true that a self-supporting nation does not suffer in proportion
to one not self-contained, but it must be realized that ecomomics and ethics
are closely related, and, even if destruction does not economically affect the
destroyer, the ethical repercussion resulting through the bankruptcy of the
victim is very likely to wound him morally.

30 The Reformation of War

so, then the means of warfare must be changed, for the present
means are means of killing, means of blood ; they must be replaced
by terrifying means, means of mind. The present implements
of war must be scrapped and these bloody tools must be replaced
by weapons the moral effect of which is so terrific that a nation
attacked by them will lose its mental balance and will compel
its government to accept the hostile policy without further demur.
In this book I will show the probable nature of the first stage
in this new evolution of war ; meanwhile, I will examine war
from the present military aspect.

In organized warfare, if the objective cannot be gained by
political action, recourse is made to force, the military objective
being the defeat of the enemy's military strength so that his
national policy may be transmuted. This objective is attained
by a harmonious employment of the remaining seven principles
of war. Without a definite objective there can be no definite
military policy or plan, and without a policy or plan, actions
cannot be co-ordinated ; consequently, the principle of the objective
may also be considered as the principle of co-ordination, for, as
Napoleon once said : " There are many good generals in Europe,
but they see too many things at once. I see the enemy's masses
and I destroy them." By this appreciation of the objective
all his movements were controlled.

According to the objective depends the direction taken by an
army, and on its direction depends its supply. The enemy
is at A, we are at B. Does the line joining these two points
give us our direction ? Yes and no ! Yes, if the seven remaining
principles are not adversely affected by our moving in this
direction, and if the conditions permit of us doing so. No, if
otherwise. We should not, however, discard this direction off-
hand, even if we find that some of the principles are difficult
to apply ; instead we should test each possible line of advance
until we arrive at the line of least resistance, bearing in
mind that the principle of the objective aims at creating such
a situation as will force the enemy to accept the policy he is
fighting against.

The Science and Art of War 31

(ii.) The Principle of the Offensive. Will the objective that
we have selected enable us to apply the principle of the offensive ?
If it will not, then the objective selected must be discarded, for
the offensive in war is the surest road to success. If it will, then
in which direction should the offensive be made ? The answer
to this question depends on the conditions of war (existing and
probable circumstances), which should be looked upon as the
correctors of all military movements.

Thus, if time be against us, time in which an enemy can mass
his reserves to meet our offensive and so outwit us, the offensive
becomes futile or dangerous ; unless, possessing more men than
brains, our object is simply to kill as many of the enemy as
we can, regardless of cost, which is not only a violation of the
principle of economy of force, but the poorest of poor generalship.
A private soldier thinks in terms of killing men, but a general
should think in terms of disorganizing and demoralizing, that
is of defeating armies. "Push of pikes" is a simple game
compared to defeating an army, which requires an acuter intellect
than that of a lusty halberdier.

Seldom will it be possible to march straight towards the
enemy's main force in order to defeat it. Its whereabouts
may be unknown, but, even so, the ultimate objective — dis-
organization and demoralization, remains constant. Con-
sequently, though many acts may be required before the curtain
of victory is finally rung down, each act must be a distinct pro-
gression towards the transformation scene of peace. If this
be not the case, then an infringement of the principle of the
objective will take place. This must be guarded against, for
each blow must form a definite link in an offensive chain of blows,
in which moves, as in chess, are seen ahead.

A general will seldom win without attacking, and he will
seldom attack correctly unless he has chosen his objective with
reference to the principles of war, and unless his attack is based
on these principles. Imagination is a great detective, but
imagination which is not based on the sound foundation of reason
is at best but a capricious leader. Even genius itself, unless it

32 The Reformation of War

be stiffened by powerful weapons, a high moral, discipline and
training, can only be likened to a marksman armed with a
blunderbuss — ability wasted through insufficiency of means.
Conversely, an efficient army led by an antiquated soldier may
be compared to a machine gun in the hands of an arbalister.

(hi.) The Principle of Security. The objective in battle
being to destroy or paralyse the enemy's fighting strength,
consequently the side which can best secure itself against the
action of its antagonist will stand the best chance of winning,
for by saving its men and weapons, its organization and moral,
it will augment its offensive power. Security is, therefore, a
shield and not a lethal weapon, consequently the defensive is
not the strongest form of war, but merely a prelude to the accom-
plishment of the objective — the defeat of the enemy by means
of the offensive invigorated by defensive measures. The offensive
being essential to success, it stands to reason that security without
reference to the offensive is no security at all, but merely delayed
suicide.

As danger and the fear of danger are the chief moral obstacles
of the battlefield, it follows that the imbuing of troops with a
sense of security is one of the chief duties of a commander, for,
if weapons be of equal power, battles are won by a superiority
of nerve rather than by a superiority of numbers. This sense of
security, though it may be supplemented by artifice, is chiefly
based on the feeling of moral ascendance due to fighting efficiency
and confidence in command. Given the skilled soldier, the moral
ascendancy resulting from his efficiency will rapidly evaporate
unless it be skilfully directed and employed. Ultimately, as in
all undertakings, civil or military, we come back to the impulse
of the moment, that is to the brains which control each individual
nerve which runs through the military body. To give skilled
troops to an unskilled leader is tantamount to throwing snow on
hot bricks. Skill in command is, therefore, the foundation
of security, for a clumsy craftsman will soon take the edge off
his tools.

The basis of strategical security is the soundness of the

The Science and Art of War 33

general plan of action, the infrequency of the change of objective
or of direction, and of the absence of unnecessary movement.
Strategical security is also arrived at by placing an army in a
good position to hit at the communications and headquarters
of the enemy while protecting its own : by so disposing a force
that it may live at ease and fight efficiently.

Grand tactical security may be defined as the choosing of a
vulnerable target or the refusal to offer one. Here the factors
are mainly those of time and space — the rapid massing of weapons
at the decisive point whether for attack or defence, and the
general organization of the battle itself. Minor tactical security
embraces the entire gamut of a soldier's actions : his individual
moral and efficiency, the quickness and audacity of his leader,
the judgment and determination of his commander and the
confidence of his comrades, as well as the superiority of his
weapons, means of movement and protection.

(iv.) The Principle of Concentration. Concentration, or
the bringing of things or ideas to a point of union, presupposes
movement ; movement of ideas, especially in an army, is a far
more difficult operation than the movement of men. Never-
theless, unless ideas, strategical, tactical and administrative,
be concentrated, cohesion of effort will not result ; and in pro-
portion as unity of action is lacking, so will an army's strength,
moral and physical, be squandered in detail until a period be
arrived at in which the smallest result will be obtained from every
effort. The central idea of an army is known as its " doctrine,"
which, to be sound, must be based on the principles of war,
and which, to be effective, must be elastic enough to admit of
mutation in accordance with change of circumstances. In its
ultimate relationship to human understanding, this central idea
or doctrine is nothing else than common-sense, namely, action
adapted to circumstances. The danger of a doctrine per se is that
it is apt to ossify into a dogma and to be seized upon by mental
emasculates who lack the power of analytic criticism and syn-
thetic thought, and who are only too grateful to rest assured
that their actions, however inept, find justification in a book

3

34 The Reformation of War

which, if they think at all, is, in their opinion, written in order to
exonerate them from doing so. In the past, many armies have
been destroyed by internal discord, and some have been destroyed
by the weapons of their antagonists, but the majority have
perished through adhering to dogmas springing from their past
successes, that is self-destruction, or suicide, through inertia of
mind.

Though an army should operate according to the idea which,
through concentration, has become part of its nature, the brain of
its commander must in no way be hampered by preconceived or
fixed opinions, for, while it is right that the soldier should consider
himself invincible, it is never right that the commander should
consider himself undefeatable. Contempt for an enemy, how-
ever badly led, has frequently led to disaster ; therefore it is the
first duty of the commander to concentrate on common-sense,
and to maintain his doctrine in solution so that it may easily
take the mould of whatever circumstances it may have to be cast
in. Strategy should be based on this doctrine of action adapted
to circumstances, and, consequently, concentration in strategy
may be defined as making the most of opportunity and also of
forecasting and foreseeing the possibility of opportunity before
it arises.

As strategical actions chiefly depend on means of movement,
so equally does the concentration of the forces engaged in them
depend on communications ; consequently, from the network
formed by the lines of supply is evolved grand tactical concentra-
tion, the object of which is to overcome resistance by breaking it
down or turning it to advantage.

From the point of view of the battle itself, concentration has
for centuries been based on the maxim of " superiority of numbers
at the decisive point," because numbers were the coefficient of
weapons, each man normally being a one-weapon mounting.
This maxim no longer holds good as a general rule, and in its
place must be substituted . " superiority of moral, weapons,
means of movement and protection." Men, in themselves, are
an encumbrance on the battlefield, and the fewer men we employ,

The Science and Art of War 35

without detracting from sufficiency of weapon-power, the greater
will be our concentration of strength, for the aim of concentration
is as much concerned with securing an army against blows as it is
with enabling an army to deliver them.

(v.) The Principle of Economy of Force. Economy of force
may be defined as the efficient use of all means : physical, moral
and material, towards winning a war. Of all the principles of
war it is the most difficult to apply, because of its close inter-
dependence on the ever changing conditions of war. In order to
economize the moral energy of his men, a commander must not
only be in spirit one of them, but must ever have his fingers on the
pulse of the fighters. What they feel he must feel, and what they
think he must think ; but while they feel fear, experience dis-
comfort and think in terms of easy victory or disaster, though he
must understand what all these mean to the men themselves, he
must in no way be obsessed by them. To him economy of force
first means planning a battle which his men can fight, and secondly,
adjusting this plan according to the psychological changes which
the enemy's resistance is producing on their endurance without
forgoing his objective. This does not only entail his possessing
judgment, but also foresight and imagination. His plan must
never crystallize, for the energy of the battle front is always
fluid. He must realize that a fog, or shower of rain, a cold night
or unexpected resistance may force him to adjust his plan, and,
in order to enable him to do so, the grand tactical economy of
force rests with his reserves, which form the staying power of the
battle and the fuel of all tactical movement.

On the battlefield, to economize his own strength and by
means of feints and surprisals to force the enemy to dissipate his,
is the first step towards victory. Every weapon which he can
compel the enemy to withdraw from the point of attack is an
obstacle removed from the eventual path of progress. Every
subsidiary operation should be based on the objective and effect
a concentration of weapon-power on the day of decisive action.
Every subsidiary action should add, therefore, an increasing value
to victory, that is the power of producing a remunerative tactical

3*

36 The Reformation of War

dividend. " Is the game worth the candle ? " This is the
question every commander must ask himself before playing at
war.

By this I do not mean that risks must never be taken, far
from it, for it is by taking risks which are worth taking that, more
often than not, the greatest economies are effected and the highest
interest secured. In war, audacity is nearly always right and
gambling is nearly always wrong, and the worst form of gambling
in war is gambling with small stakes ; for by this process an army
is eventually bled white.

Economy of force is also closely related to economy of move-
ment. Many generals have attempted to win a military Marathon
in sprinting time. They have thrown in all their reserves at
once, and so have lost their wind within a few hours of the battle
opening. Such operations as these are doomed to failure long
before the first shot is ever fired.

(vi.) The Principle of Movement. If concentration of weapon-
power be compared to a projectile and economy of force to its
line of fire, then movement may be looked upon as the propellant
and as a propellant is not always in a state of explosive energy, so
neither is movement. Movement is the power of endowing mass
with momentum ; it depends, therefore, largely on security,
which, when coupled with offensive power, results in liberty of
action. Movement, consequently, may be potential as well as
dynamic, and, if an army be compared to a machine the power of
which is supplied to it by a series of accumulators, should
the object of its commander be to maintain movement,
he can only accomplish this by refilling one set of accumulators
while the other is in process of being exhausted. The shorter
the time available to do this the more difficult will the com-
mander's task be ; consequently, one of his most important
duties, throughout war, is to increase the motive power of his
troops, which depends on two main factors — moral and physical
endurance.

In war, the power to move must first be considered in the
form of the general will to move. In battle the forward impulse

The Science and Art of War 37

comes from the leaders and the troops themselves. They are,
in fact, self-propelled projectiles and are not impelled forward by
the explosive energy of command. Such energy scarcely if ever
exists ; what does exist is direction to its impulse, and the rein-
forcing or recharging of this impulse with more power by means
of reserves. These reserves not only endow the combatants
with physical energy but with a moral sense of power and security
which impels them forward.

Even with an army of high moral, that is to say an army
which possesses the will to move towards danger, or, inversely,
the will to refuse to move away from danger, it must ultimately
be the physical factor, the muscular endurance of the men them-
selves, which sets a limit to their power of movement. In order
to increase muscular movement, by conserving it as long as
possible, mechanical means of movement have for some time
been employed for the strategical and administrative movements
of an army ; so much so that the approach movements to-day
are based on locomotives and lorries. The result of this is that,
while strategical mobility, namely movement at a distance from
the enemy, has enormously increased, tactical movement, through
increase of impedimenta, has decreased in inverse proportion,
until battles founded on muscular movement have become more
often than not static engagements based on broadside fire from
fixed positions. In order to overcome this immobility, mechani-
cal cross-country movement has been forced on armies, and, what-
ever may be the prejudice shown to its introduction, the complete
replacement of muscular movement by it is as near a certainty
as can be foreseen.

(vii.) The Principle of Surprise. Lack of security, or a false
interpretation of the principle of security, leads directly to being
surprised. The principle of surprise, like a double-edged tool, is
an exceedingly dangerous one in unskilled hands ; for, being
mainly controlled by psychological factors, its nature is less
stable and the conditions affecting it are more difficult to
gauge.

Surprise, in its direct meaning, presupposes the unexpected,

38 The Reformation of War

which, throughout history, may be considered under five general
headings :

(i.) Surprise effected by superiority of courage,
(ii.) Surprise effected by superiority of movement,
(hi.) Suprise effected by superiority of protection,
(iv.) Surprise effected by superiority of weapons,
(v.) Surprise effected by superiority of tactics.

To gain superiority in anything or any quality takes time, conse-
quently we find that, although minor surprisals may be gained by
seizing upon the right opportunities, the possibility of effecting
major surprisals is based extensively on forecasts and prepara-
tions made during days of peace, especially as regards the nature
and requirements of the next war, for the surest foundation of
being surprised is to suppose that the next war will be like the
last one. In modern times, similarity between wars has seldom
occurred, as the most casual retrospect into military history will
prove ; consequently, when a commander attempts to copy
former battles, we find that an army is frequently surprised with
its eyes open. It sees things coming, but, blinded by prejudice
and shackled by tradition, it does not perceive their consequences,
which are only realized when their causes have taken or are
actually taking effect.

On the battlefield itself a general is frequently surprised by
his own stupidity, his lack of being able to understand conditions
or to apply to them the principles of war. His stupidity some-
times takes the acute form of completely misunderstanding the
endurance of his men ; not realizing what they can do, he orders
them to do something which they cannot do, and the result is
chaos and loss of life. Surprise among troops, as among in-
dividuals, is largely a matter of nerves. The nerves of an army
are not only to be found in the individual temperaments and
collective suggestibility of the officers and men, but also in its staff
organization. The trunk nerves of an army are its general staff,
whose one great duty is to convey the impressions felt by the
rank and file to the brains of their commander. If this be

The Science and Art of War 39

neglected the best laid plan will fail and paralysis of action will
result in being surprised.

(viii.) The Principle of Co-operation. Co-operation is a
cementing principle ; it is closely related to economy of force, and
therefore to concentration, but it differs from both of these
principles, for while mass is the concentrated strength of the
organism and economy of force the dispersed strength which
renders the former stable, co-operation may be likened to the
muscular tension which knits all the parts into one whole. With-
out co-operation an army falls to pieces. In national wars, the
value of co-operation is enormously enhanced, fusing, as it does,
the body and soul of a nation into one intricate self-supporting
organism. All must pull together, for such wars are the wars of
entire nations, and, whatever may be the size of the armies
operating, these should be looked upon as national weapons, and
not as fractions of nations whose duty is to fight while the civil
population turns thumbs up or thumbs down. Gladiatorial
wars are dead and gone.

We find, therefore, that for us co-operation in war embraces
the whole gamut of our Imperial existence, which means that
during war one master mind must control the whole national
machinery, in order to reduce the friction which its adjustment
by many hands inevitably creates. Take, for instance, the
government of a nation at war. If there be friction in the
government, there is friction not only throughout the nation
but throughout the army. No man can efficiently serve two
masters, neither can two masters lead and direct the same man.
If in a cabinet of six members each strives to conduct a war
departmentally, according to his own particular degree of ig-
norance in strategy, in place of one objective there will be six
objectives, or, worse still, six phases of one objective. When such
a state of affairs arises it is time to declare a dictatorship, for
dispersion of force in war is to commit suicide while temporarily
insane. There can be but one main objective ; consequently,
all subsidiary ones must be reduced to their utmost limit to enable
the concentration of all requisite battle-power at the decisive

40 The Reformation of War

point. One objective requires one master-mind to formulate
the general plan, and not half a dozen jacks of all trades to dissipate
it. One master mind must control the war, and all other minds
must accept or be compelled to accept his ruling.

Tactically, co-operation is based on battle organization,
weapons, protection and movement, skill, confidence, discipline
and determination : it is moral, physical and mechanical. This
means that all must work for the attainment of the objective
and not for themselves. The weeding out of fools and knaves
is, therefore, the first step to be accomplished. The second is
the scrapping of bureaucratic processes and shibboleths, and the
bringing of ability to the top. Senility of thought is the antithesis
of co-operative action. A vintage of new ideas is always produced
in war, and the vats must be sufficient and the bottles strong
enough to hold it ; for new ideas, like new wine, go through a
process of fermentation, which in an army commanded by a
weak-headed general can only lead to tactical intoxication.
Co-operation in its widest sense spells not only military efficiency
but national and Imperial efficiency, which centred round one
line of direction impels all the life and fighting strength of the
nation towards victory. Without such an axis an army fights
floundering.

Principles in themselves are not worth the paper they are
written on, for they are but mere words strung together in a
certain order. Their value lies in their application, and this
application depends on the thousand and one conditions which
surround the elements of war during operations. What are
these conditions, for without knowing them it is manifestly
impossible to apply the principles ? Conditions are innumerable
and ever changing, but the following are some of the most im-
portant : Time, space, ground, weather, numbers, training, com-
munications, supply, armament, formations, obstacles and
observation.

Each of these conditions may be considered as possessing a
dual nature — a power of increasing the strength of the offensive
and a power of increasing the strength of the defensive ; each,

The Science and Art of War 41

therefore, may be looked upon as possessing power to enhance
offensive and defensive action in war.

A commander has three means at his disposal to deal with a
condition :

(i.) He may avoid it.

(ii.) He may break it down.

(hi.) He may turn it to his own advantage.

The third course, which masters the difficulty, is manifestly
the best, and it is the one which even a superficial study of
military history will show was employed by the great Captains
of war, it was in fact the secret of their success.

At the beginning of this Chapter I stated that, when two
men fought their object was to impose their will upon each
other. Up to the present I have mainly considered the means
employed in order to accomplish this, and the principles governing
these means. I will now turn to the psychological side of war,
and show that it also has its elements, principles and conditions.

I will examine once again the primitive duel between two
unarmed men, and from it will extract certain facts which may
be classed as psychological elements. We first find the primordial
material — man, but this time represented not by muscle but by
mind. As the physiological object of the fighter is "to kill
without being killed," so is his psychological object " to will
without being willed." In these five words is presented the
pivotal psychological problem in the science of war — the de-
struction of the enemy's will, which not only cements together
his army but the whole of his nation in a vast living mosaic.

In war, as in all other phases of human activity, we find
that the elemental psychological power is mind. In the case of
our two unarmed fighters, both fear the other, there is no courage
in the normal meaning of the word ; both desire to kill the other,
and both instinctively take advantage of any opportunity to
do so, especially, if by so doing, little risk be run. We here
obtain three elements :

(i.) Will— desire to kill.

42 The Reformation of War

(ii.) Cunning — opportunity to kill at the smallest risk,
(iii.) Fear — desire to live.

The first is the mobile element, the second and third the
offensive and the defensive elements respectively.

In primitive man, the first is awakened through threats to
self- and family-preservation ; in civilized man, though these bear
equal sway, to them must be added the more recently acquired
instincts of race- and national-preservation with all their rami-
fications— social, political and commercial. From the second,
the making good of opportunity, we get a most complex evolu-
tion : cunning evolving into knowledge, education, science and
art. From a tactical standpoint, natural cunning, as it presents
itself in the primitive duel, evolves into the skill of the scientific
fighter. Skill, reacting on the will, is a great incentive to moral,
or confidence. The greater the skill of the soldier, the greater
will this confidence become, and, as confidence in the weapons
used plays as important a part in the growth of moral as skill
in the use of the weapons themselves, we find that every improve-
ment in weapons carries with it a psychological impulse. Thus,
a man, who unarmed, will tremble before a footpad, feels no fear
when covering him with a revolver. This is so important a
point that it forms one of the main problems of this book.
Weapons being material means of accomplishing mental im-
pulses, not only do they stimulate the will by instilling confidence
(moral), but skill in their use depends on this stimulation. There-
fore, we find that, in order to control the third element, the mental
powers of the soldier, as aggregated in his will, must never become
slack, lazy or paralysed. They must be held in a state of attention
on the " desire to win." This state of attention may be sym-
bolized by the quality called " courage," which, in war, simply
means a state of less fear than that in which the enemy is in,
and not necessarily a sense of personal superiority such as might
be felt by a poet or artist over a clodhopper or successful grocer.
This state of courage, it will be seen, is equally dependent on skill
in movement, weapons and protection, and the superiority of these

I

The Science and Art of War 43

elements themselves over those of the enemy. Thus, from will,
through the reaction of cunning, which I will now call moral,
and fear, is scientific fighting evolved.

Though the principles of war are equally applicable to the
psychological aspects of this science, there are certain definite
psychological principles which may be abstracted alike from
the primitive duel and the scientific battle. There is, first of
all, a desire or " determination " to fight, either on one side or
both. The contest opens, therefore, with two wills in opposition.
The giving and aiming of blows is made in order to enforce the
will, and the avoiding of them to prevent the will being enforced.
This enforcement I will call " demoralization," and the avoidance
of it " endurance." From these we can extract three great
principles :

(i.) The principle of determination,
(ii.) The principle of demoralization,
(hi.) The principle of endurance.

These psychological principles constitute a definite link
between the physical and mental sides of the science of war,'
which may be depicted as follows :

MAN

( Movement. . (Principle of Determination) . .Will}

Muscle I Weapons . . (Principle of Endurance) . . . .Moral >Mind.

( Protection . . (Principle of Demoralization) . . Fear j

We start with man physical and man mental ; he must
possess the will to fight and the power to move, the connecting
link is the principle of determination or the will to win. He must
possess the moral to hit and the power to hit, here the connecting
link is the principle of endurance. He must endow his adversary
with a fear which will force him to protect himself or seek pro-
tection, which is acknowledgment of lack of endurance
(temporary or permanent) , and inferiority of determination ; here
the connecting link is the principle of demoralization. Thus,
we see that, in war, the " will to win " is the power of being
able to endure and to demoralize, and that the three psychological

44 The Reformation of War

elements are not " things in themselves " but coefficients of the
elements of war — movement, weapons and protection.

As 1 have dealt at some length with the principles of war, it
is only fitting that I should now examine these psychological
principles, for they are no less important. Briefly, the following
are my views :

(i.) The Principle of Determination. The limits of the principle
of determination are first defined by the national objective of
war, and secondly by its military objective. Between these
two boundaries this principle operates.

From the national point of view, there is the will to impose
upon the enemy's government a policy distasteful to it ; this
policy must be clean cut, for on its stability rests the military
objective, which psychologically is the " will to win." Sub-
jectively, this will is concentrated in the mind of the commander,
whose plan of action is the means of enforcing the national
policy ; this plan must also be clean cut, that is to say it must
be so simple that its very nature will give rise to the fewest
possible complexities. As the stability of this plan will depend
on the stability of the policy, the commander-in-chief must not
only be acquainted with the nature of this policy, but with
any changes rendered necessary through fluctuations in national
conditions. Inversely, any changes in plan will entail modi-
fications in policy ; consequently, we find that both the plan
and the policy are correlatives, that is they are dependent on
each other's stability. Now, as every policy must be plastic
enough to admit of fluctuations in national conditions, so must
each plan be plastic -enough to receive the impressions of war,
that is power to change its shape without changing or cracking
its substance. This plasticity is determined psychologically
by the condition of mentality in the two opposing forces. There
is the determination between the two commanders-in-chief,
and between them and their men, and, ultimately, between the
two forces themselves. The " will to win " is, therefore, first
of all a duel between two brains each controlling a weapon
called an army ; and secondly, a struggle between two armies

The Science and Art of War 45

each equipped with various types of weapons. If all these
various weapons, each influencing in its own degree the mentality
of its wielder and that of his opponent, can be reduced in number,
the principle of determination becomes more simple in application.
If, again, similarity of protection becomes possible, simplicity
is increased ; and if, finally, similarity of movement can be added,
physically the simplest form of army is evolved.

I will now examine the psychological side. If the will and
moral of each individual can be brought to a high but equal level
and his fear to a low and equal level, the commander-in-chief will
possess known qualities out of which to construct his plan. It
will be seen, therefore, that, in its broadest sense, the principle of
determination is the simplification of the means so that the will
of both the chief and his men may become operative.

(ii.) The Principle of Endurance. Springing directly from
the principle of determination is the great principle of endurance .
The will of the commander-in-chief and the will of his men must
endure, that is the}' must continue in the same state. It is the
local conditions, mental and material, which continually weaken
this state and in war often threaten to submerge it. To the
commander endurance consists, therefore, in power of overcoming
conditions — by foresight, judgment and skill. These qualities
cannot be cultivated at a moment's notice, and the worst place
to seek their cultivation is on the battlefield itself. The com-
mander-in-chief must be, therefore, a mental athlete, his dumb-
bells, clubs and bars being the elements of war and his exercises
the application of the principles of war to the conditions of in-
numerable problems.

Collectively, in an army, endurance is intimately connected
with numbers, and, paradoxical as it may seem, the greater the
size of an army the less is its psychological endurance. The
reason for this is a simple one : one man has one mind ; two men
have three minds — each his own and a crowd mind shared be-
tween them ; a million men have millions and millions and
millions of minds. If a task which normally requires a million
men can be carried out by one man, this one man possesses

46 The Reformation of War

psychologically an all but infinitely higher endurance than any
single man out of the million. Man, I will again repeat, is an
encumbrance on the battlefield, psychologically as well as
physically ; consequently, endurance should not be sought in
numbers, for one Achilles is worth a hundred hoplites.

(iii.) The Principle of Demoralization. As the principle of
endurance has, as its primary object, the security of the minds of
men by shielding their moral against the shock of battle, in-
versely the principle of demoralization has as its object the de-
struction of this moral : first, in the moral attack against the
spirit and nerves of the enemy's nation and government ; secondly
against this nation's policy ; thirdly against the plan of its com-
mander-in-chief, and fourthly against the moral of the soldiers
commanded by him. Hitherto the fourth, the least important
of these objectives, has been considered by the traditionally-
minded soldier as the sole psychological objective of this great
principle. In the last great war the result of this was, as I shall
show presentfy, that the attack on the remaining three only slowly
evolved during days of stress and because of a faulty appreciation
of this principle during peace time.

I will now turn to the psychological conditions of war.

In considering these it must first be realized that all conditions
are, in part at least, psychological. That is to say they stimulate
the brain in a greater or lesser degree ; but while hundreds affect
war materially, such as roads for supply and the influence of
gravity on the flight of projectiles, thousands more directly affect
the mind of the soldier, and through his mind his body, and
through his body his actions. Psychologically, we may divide
these conditions into three general categories : those which are
common to men either individually or collectively ; those which
affect the soldier as an individual, and those which affect a mass
of soldiers as a homogeneous crowd. The following are examples
of these categories :

(i.) General Conditions : Safety, comfort, fatigue, catch-
words, loyalty, honour, faith, hatred and cheerfulness.

The Science and Art of War 47

(ii.) Individual Conditions : Knowledge, skill, determination,
endurance, courage, imagination, confidence, talent and
sense of duty.

(iii.) Collective Conditions : Suggestion, intuition, supersti-
tion, esprit de corps, tradition, moral, education, patriotism
and comradeship.

I do not propose to analyse these conditions as it would take
a long time to do so, nevertheless it should be remembered that
the psychological principles in war cannot be applied correctly
unless the conditions which go to build up soldiership have been
stabilized, long prior to war, in days of peace.

The process whereby this stability is effected is called training.
Training forms the true foundation of battle, which should be a
continuation of the soldier's education, just as war itself should be
a continuation of peace policy. For this to be possible it will be
at once seen that training should not be based solely on the known
conditions of past wars, but above all on the probable conditions
of the next war. That, consequently, these conditions must be
foreseen ; therefore, on the correctness of their forecasting will,
to a great extent, depend the continuity of peace training in the
form of battle tactics when war breaks out. Once we have
diagnosed the conditions of the next war, then, by applying to
them the psychological principles, we shall build up a scientific
system of training. In fact, we shall start winning our battle.?
from to-day onwards on the barrack square and in the class-room.
Training, such as this, may well be called the art of war, the
foundations of which I will now inquire into.

In analysing tactics, or the art of fighting, the military student
usually visualizes the battle as a " thing in itself." The correct
appreciation is diametrically opposite, for battles consist of a
complex series of individual fights, each compounded of the ele-
ments of war operating concentrically round the problem of how
to give blows without receiving them. This problem may be
divided into four sub-problems, which every commander should
consider prior to an operation taking place.

48 The Reformation of War

These four problems are :
(i.) How to keep men alive ?
(ii.) How to keep movement alive ?
(iii.) How to keep weapons alive ?
(iv.) How to keep moral alive ?

As the commander has four problems to solve so also has the
soldier. He has :

(i.) To hit his enemy while at a distance from him.

(ii.) To move towards him.

(iii.) To hit him at close quarters.

(iv.) To avoid being hit throughout this engagement.

The whole of these eight problems are in nature protective,
and they form the foundations of offensive power, which endow
it with stability of action as well as security during action and
after defeat.

I cannot here do more than glance at this fundamental pro-
blem of battle organization : how to organize an army so that it
possesses power of stability and mobility. Briefly it may be
explained as follows : As the bones of man's body give stability
to his muscular movement, so must every force of soldiers possess
within their organization certain troops which can resist attack
and certain others which can develop their mobility out of this
resistance. The battle of Crecy was virtually won by the English
archers, the mobile element. They could not, however, have
accomplished what they did had not the men-at-arms and dis-
mounted knights formed a stable base from which they were able
to develop the full power of their bows. A scientifically organized
army is one which possesses a brain and a body, both of which
possess a positive and a negative pole, stability and mobility.
The stability of the brain is its faculty of reason based on know-
ledge, and its mobility the faculty of imagination based on the
products of reason. The military body is divided into two main
forces : those which disorganize the enemy's brain and body — that
is, break down its stability, and those which annihilate the broken
fragments. Each fraction of this body must possess power to

The Science and Art of War 49

resist movement and power to develop movement. Its mobility
depends on a combination of weapons and movement, and its
stability upon that of weapons and protection. From these two —
its stability and mobility, are its offensive and protective powers
reciprocally developed. Thus, in the hands of man, do we see a
harmonious inter-relation between the three physical elements of
war, and, according to the degree of harmony attained, do the
plans of man succeed or fail. This brings us to the problem of
grand tactics or battle planning.

In every plan the first question is to decide on the objective.
In physical warfare the military objective is the defeat of the
enemy's army, so that the will of his government may be at-
tacked. Where, then, is the decisive point, the point at which
the enemy may most economically be defeated ? The schoolmen
answer : " The decisive point depends on circumstances," and
some suggest a flank and others a central objective. The school-
men, if they only thought in simpler terms than they are wont to
do, could have long ago given a better answer to this question,
which I will examine from a very simple point of view.

Every organization has one great prototype — the body of
man. When a boxer fights another he tries to get a left or right
on the side of his opponent's jaw. Why ? Not to break the jaw,
the external body, but to derange the brain, the internal organ,
because more than any other organ the brain controls the body.

The brain of an army is its command, and the command of an
army is its decisive point, and no blow should be delivered with-
out reference to this point. Though the brains of an army control
its whole body, nevertheless the prevailing idea in tactics is one
of brute force applied by weapons to the enemy's battle body.
Batter the enemy's muscles blue and black and get battered
black and blue in return, is the traditional method, and then only,
when one side is rendered physically impotent, attack the brains !

I fully agree that more often than not it is impossible to strike
straight to the jaw because our opponent carefully protects his
chin. This does not, however, vitiate the fact that the decisive
point is the command of the opposing army, and that the more

4

50 The Reformation of War

the enemy is forced to protect it, the less will he be able to
hit out.

The elements of grand tactics are in essence very simple, once
the decisive point has been agreed upon. The object is either to
paralyse or disintegrate the enemy's command, which may be
carried out by four acts, separate or combined. These four
acts are :

(i.) Surprise. An enemy may be surprised, which implies
that he is thrown off his balance. This is the best method of
defeating him, for it is so economical, one man taking on to him-
self the strength of many. Surprise may be considered under
two main headings : surprise effected by doing something that
the enemy does not expect, and surprise effected by doing some-
thing that the enemy cannot counter. The first may be denoted
as moral surprise, the second as material.

(ii.) Envelopment. An enemy may be enveloped and so
placed at a severe disadvantage. Envelopment, whether ac-
complished by converging or overlapping, presupposes a flank, a
flank which may be tactically rolled up, or, if turned, will expose
the command and lines of communications behind it. The attack
by envelopment is a very common action in war, which more often
than not has led to victory.

(hi.) Penetration. An enemy's front may be penetrated in
order directly to threaten his lines of communications behind it,
or to hit at his command, or to create a flank or flanks to be
enveloped. Normally, when once a hostile front is broken, the
two sections are rolled up in opposite directions to each other, or
one is held while the other is hammered ; an operation which, if
carried out successfully, usually leads to a total disintegration of
the enemy's strength.

(iv.) Attrition. An enemy may be worn out by physical and
moral action ; this, though the usual method of defeating him, is
also, frequently, the most uneconomical method, for the process
of disintegration is mutually destructive.

Outside these four grand tactical acts of battle there is little
to be learnt in grand tactics.

The Science and Art of War 51

Once the direction of the decisive attack is fixed, the grand
tactical plan is arrived at by applying the principles of war to
the conditions under which war has to be waged ; in other words,
liberty of movement has to be gained. Free movement, which is
the object of all strategy, is conditioned not only by impulse but
by the form of the object moved. In war, the will of the com-
mander is the impulse, and the strategical distribution of his
army the form of the military projectile, which should nor malty,
like an arrow-head, be triangular, the main force in rear of
it operating like the shaft behind the head. Generally this
head consists of an advanced guard and two wings. The secret
of all economical military formations is that they must possess
a harmon}^ of offensive and defensive power through move-
ment, movement in its broadest sense being " locomobility,"
that is freedom of movement in all directions.

Liberty of movement is the basis of liberty of action, which
is a compound formed out of superiority in the elements of war.
It is the foundation of minor tactics and consists of the follow-
ing values :

( Superiority of will.

(i.) Man - Superiority of endurance.

( Continuity of co-operation.

( Superiority of speed.

(ii.) Movement <J Continuity of movement.

( Superiority of manoeuvre.

( Superiority of weapons.

(hi.) Weapon -J Superiority of clinching.

( Superiority of fire.

{Inferiority of target.
Continuity of supply.
Superiority of mobile protection.

These must not only be mixed but amalgamated if liberty
of action is to possess a practical value. Thus, continuity of
ammunition supply is useless if superiority of weapons does
not exist ; and superiority of fire is useless if it does not

4*

52 The Reformation of War

produce continuity of co-operation. Liberty of action does not
mean moving anywhere, but moving according to plan. It
does not mean acting anyhow, either wholly or in part, but
acting harmoniously towards the attainment of the objective.
The relation of each of its components to the whole of its com-
ponents, as represented by liberty of action itself, must be
dynamic. Liberty of action is not the free will of the com-
mander as a thing in itself, but the harmonious application of
the principles of war to the conditions of the moment. The
conditions formulating the lines of least resistance, and the will
of the commander progressing, by means of the elements, along
these lines according to the dictates of the principles. Liberty
of action is the perfect correlationship between the elements
and conditions by means of the principles. It is not so much
the domination of one will over another as the adjustment of
one will according to the other. Liberty of action is, therefore,
the offspring of two wills rather than the force engendered by
one ; it is the analogy of two opposites.

In an arm}/, as a whole, liberty of action is expressed in
the soul of the team. Each separate action is identified with
the whole action of the army and not as a part of the whole ;
it is a psychic power and not an organic act. It is manifested
through a general will, a general endurance, and a general co-
operation. It seeks action through a general mobility, a con-
tinuity of this mobility and the power of harmonizing it within
itself. It attains result through the superiority of weapons,
the superiority of fire, and the power of clinching, which it
protects by the inferiority of the target offered to the enemy,
the continuity of supply of ammunition, weapons, means of
movement and men, and by the various forms of protection,
the most important of which are of a mobile nature. Finally,
liberty of action is based on harmony of movement, mental,
physical and mechanical, which harmony, in itself, constitutes
the energy of the compound.

If the nature of the elements of war is understood, and if
we realize what is meant by liberty of action, it must, conse-

The Science and Art of War 53

quently, follow that there are both correct and incorrect offensive
and defensive formations for weapons within units and for
units themselves. I have already pointed out that the organiza-
tion of every unit should possess stable and mobile qualities.
I will now carry this analysis one step further.

In an attack, the first question to ask ourselves is : how
to advance ? The second : what will prevent an economical
advance ? Here again the old problem, of how to give blows
without receiving them, confronts us. The clearance of obstacles
to movement is essential ; consequently, we arrive at a very
common-sense answer, namely, that — few attacks except nor-
mal attacks are likely to succeed ; in fact a normal attack should
be what its name implies — an attack according to principles
governed by conditions, i.e., economical.

Once resistance has been reduced to a normal condition ;
it logically follows that a normal formation can be devised
which will suit this condition, and that, until this condition
is arrived at, no formation will prove economical.

I have already explained that movement has two forms —
the approach and the attack ; consequently, there are two main
formations in battle :

(i.) The approach formation : The fundamental formation
for the approach is one which will combine mobility and security
with potentiality of offensive power.

(ii.) The attack formation : The fundamental formation
for the attack is one which will enable the maximum number
of weapons to be used with fullest effect.

The normal approach formation is the column,* and the
normal attack formation is the line.

Whether an offensive be carried out over open field land
or against a strongly fortified position, its foundations are to
be sought for in the base of operations from which the attack

* The smallest column is the infantry section in single file. It was used
by Cyrus and Alexander ; it was revived by Sir John Moore, forgotten, and
once again to-day finds its place in infantry tactics. See " The Procedure of
the Infantry Attack," by the writer, R.U.S.I. Journal, January, 1914.

54 The Reformation of War

is launched. In the past this base has been considered as the
original starting line, and, if battles can be won in a single
onslaught, this assumption is correct. As this can seldom be
done, and as battles normally are won by relays of attacks,
each relay must start from a stable base ; consequently there
must be a base of operations to each objective requiring a fresh
echelon of troops. Each echelon and each wave of each echelon
must be sufficiently self-contained not only to be in a position
to capture an objective, or line of resistance, but to hold it,
and so form a base of operations for the echelon or wave follow-
ing it. Further, each wave must be protected by the one in
front of it as well as those behind it and on its flanks, and, as
the first wave cannot be so protected and the last is frequently
similarly situated, it is essential that the leading troops and those
which will form the ultimate battle front should be drawn from
a corps d' elite, the former setting the example and the latter
instilling confidence.

Having now explained what I mean by a progressive base
of operations, I will examine the action developed from this
base. First, we have got to assemble the troops ; secondly,
these troops have got to approach towards the enemy ; thirdly,
they have got to attack him, and fourthly, destroy him physically
or morally. Here we obtain four minor tactical acts :

(i.) The assembly.

(ii.) The approach.

(hi.) The attack.

(iv.) The pursuit.

The first is preparatory to the second, the second to the
third and the third to the fourth.

The attack may be divided into two stages according to
whether missile or shock weapons are used. These are :

(i.) The act of demoralization (fire fight).

(ii.) The act of decision (shock).

The act of annihilation or pursuit is virtually a new attack
requiring fresh troops and troops of a more mobile nature to
those pursued. To summarize :

The Science and Art of War 55

A battle is an enormously complex action consisting of a
number of simple parts. First, we must grasp the conditions,
and, by so doing, ride the course. We then must take all the
conditions which we know and weigh out their values in terms
of assistance and resistance. Those we do not know but sus-
pect we must consider even more carefully than those we know,
allowing for a considerable margin of error, and always giving
the benefit of doubt to the enemy.

Having collected and codified these conditions, we must
next apply to them the principles of war. We must decide
upon our objective, applying the offensive to those conditions
which will assist us and security to those which will not ; thus
shall we master conditions and harness them to our will. We then
think in terms of concentration, of economy of force, of move-
ment and surprise ; finally, we weave the whole together in a
close co-operation.

By now our battle plan will have evolved almost unconsciously,
and our plan is our grand tactics.

From this point we think purely in terms of fighting ; the
skeleton is complete, all that now remains to be done is to clothe
it with flesh and muscle — the elements of war. We think in
terms of men, movement, weapons and protection. What are
they all going to do ? Then human and animal endurance
and communications, protection by armour, earth, fire and
formation. All these give us our battle tactics. Then, there
is the battle itself, in which the moral and physical powers of
man come into play. The approach merges into the attack,
and the offensive and defensive powers of weapons, shielded
by direct and indirect protection, carry the man forward. Such
is battle and such is war — a science and an art based on sure
foundations, rooted fast in the past, with its boughs and leaves
moving this way and that above and around us according to
the conditions of the moment, but governed by the laws of
existence — action and inertia.

Ill

THE ETHICS OF WAR

THE ethics of war is a subject which in the past has not
been very carefully considered, and yet, without a just
comprehension of it, it is quite impossible to sift the virtues of
war from its vices. Hitherto, and from time immemorial, there
have existed two opposite ethical schools of military thought — the
peace-mongers and the war-mongers. To the first, war appears as
the greatest of calamities and to the second, a beneficial necessity.
Both, in the main, dislike war, but while the first seek its
abolition through concord and disarmament, the second aim
at its restriction through threat and preparation. In my own
opinion there is right and wrong on both sides, for nothing in
this world is absolutely good or absolutely evil, and the mere
fact that in war an enormous energy is expended should lead
every thinking man to suppose that, even if in the past this energy
has been chiefly made use of for purposes of destruction, there may
be some hidden path along which, should it be directed, prosperity
in place of calamity will result. With this idea before me, it is
my intention in this Chapter not so much to seek this path as
to examine the values of war, for when once these are discovered
the path itself should in the main become apparent.

Starting with an assumption that wars are an inevitable
constituent of human progress, an assumption I have examined
in Chapter L, I will first inquire into the ethical objective of
nationality, for on this objective must the true military ethical
aim be founded, because military might is but a means of enforcing
national policy.

56

The Ethics of War 57

The science of ethics is the science of duty collective and in-
dividual. The duty of a nation is to survive ; first, with profit
to itself, and secondly, with profit to humankind ; by which
is meant that each succeeding generation should intellectually,
morally and physically be superior to the generation which begat
it. Ethics teach men their duties not only towards each other
but towards themselves, and it is upon these duties that national
stability is founded.

Race survival, or the struggle for existence between the
weaker and the stronger, breeds cunning and co-operation, without
which a nation must retrogress. Either the weaker in body
must become more cunning (mentally able) in mind, or else
they must unite co-operatively in order to survive. Conse-
quently, weakness, as well as strength, possesses qualities of
virtue and vice. Virtue, ethically, being defined as : those
conditions which enable a race to survive, and vice as : those
which accelerate its decline and hasten its extinction. Virtue
and vice are, therefore, purely relative qualities, they are in no
wise, in the Kantian sense, " categorical imperatives," but,
in place, improvised factors conditioned according to local
requirements. What is virtuous to-day may be vicious to-
morrow, and what is vicious in the Antipodes may simultaneously
be virtuous in the land of the Hyperborians.

Opposition, which presupposes weakness, is the incentive
of mental progress both in the individual and in the race, for it
constitutes the inhospitable region in which intellect must strive
to live and either dominate or succumb. Mind rights muscle
(superiority of human strength or numbers) with weapons of
cunning which frequently turn conditions to the favour of the
physically weak or outnumbered. Ethics have, therefore, little
to do with moral customs established by majorities but much
with the psychology of mind.

I have shown in Chapter I., how cunning threatens the existence
of the strong — the cunning savage of primeval days lures his
adversary away from security and kills him unawares. I also
pointed out that this cunning, as a mean effort to survive, becomes

58 The Reformation of War

repellant to the strong. It is stamped as ignoble, for a scrofulous
cripple may kill an athlete. The idea of the human louse arises,
an individual living on the mental deficiency of his neighbours,
and the growth of this organism is restricted by laws and ethical
codes. Inversely, prowess is endowed with a nobility of character,
for upon prowess is the physical health of the family or race
founded, progeneration being a physical and not a mental
act.

From prowess, especially the prowess of the male as he finds
favour in the eyes of the female, is born the instinct of self-
distinction, the personal ethical factor, which evolves into the
collective ethical factor when it merges into race-distinction, and,
eventually, into race-pride and patriotism.

If we inquire into the nature of these factors we shall find
many components, some transient and some permanent. Of
the latter, the bulk may be placed under one common heading :
the greatest ethical virtue or factor of either the individual
or the nation being " common-sense."

The means of attaining the ethical objective of a nation is
therefore common-sense. Honesty is common-sense ; truth-
fulness is common-sense ; courage is common-sense, because
all these qualities assist in the survival of individuals and the
race, and not only in survival but survival with profit through
co-operation based on mutual confidence, trust and respect.

The reverse of common-sense is common-nonsense, a factor
far too little appreciated. Thus a society in which every man
lies is a nonsensical society ; so equally is one in which every
man steals or every man cohabits with his neighbour's wife.
Nonsensical periods, at times, sweep over a nation just as they do
over an individual, especially during the periods of youth and
decay (change). A Spirit of comic opera, tragic enough to the
actors but laughable to the onlookers, will sometimes possess an
entire nation. They stamp out their intellect in a social delirium
tremens, the product of imbibing strong doctrines to excess.
They conscript their labour, socialise their women, and then,
after an ebullition of liberty, equality and fraternity, whatever

The Ethics of War 59

these intoxicants may mean, grab from each other whatever
is left of their past prosperity and revert to honesty, truthfulness
and moral conduct, because without these ethical factors it would
be impossible for them to survive. They must either succumb
to common-sense or perish nonsensically ; this is the ethical
law of survival.

If ethics be defined as " the science of duty," and duty,
from its national aspect be defined as " the obligation to survive
with profit," then ethics may be considered as the psychological
aspect of biology, that is the science of life. Life never ceases
to change, and, if ethics be a branch of this science, it, conse-
quently, must be dynamic in nature, that is it must ceaselessly
change coincidently with changes in man and in the society to
which man belongs.

A moment's consideration will reveal to us that the motive
powers in man are either instinctive or acquired, the former
being far more stable than the latter ; so also in ethics do we
find a similar division. Psychologically, the instinctive qualities
originate from the instinct of self-preservation and the acquired
from innumerable artificial conceits springing mainly from that
of self-distinction — the outer manifestation of the preservative
qualities in the individual or race. The strong man advertises
his strength brutally, he breaks the neck of a bull ; the weak
man's cunning slays the brute with a sharp flint or bullet. By
openly demonstrating what each can do, they mutually teach
the other their respective deficiencies and so exaggerate their
intrinsic ability by swelling it with the admiration or envy of
those who watch them, and, consequently, add moral power to
their physical or mental strength.

In ethics, the process is very similar. We start with foun-
dational or stable ethics, those based on the instinct of self-
preservation ; we progress through these codes to those of collec-
tive or social health, and through these to the codes of dynamic
ethics, or the ethical comments arising through the mobility
of changefulness in ratiocination and local circumstances.
These, originating as unwritten rules of procedure, crystallize

60 The Reformation of War

into customs and become petrified. Thence arise the internecine
conflicts between instincts and acquirements — the social skeleton
tries to shake off the withered flesh.

Thus, ethics may grow from a duty into a compulsion and
evolve into a series of penal codes by which society is imprisoned
and against which creative thought within society is ever striving,
until, like a bodily fever, it sloughs the no longer sentient skin
in a war of purgation. Ethics in the form of copy-book virtues
are, therefore, a cause of war — wars of liberation which racially
are endemic in character, that is contagious. One nation catching
the psychological bacillus of liberty from another, is cast into a
delirium in which the ossified ethical codes become mere " scraps
of paper," social scabs, things to be torn up and scratched at
by the instincts which are again freed from restriction. As
restrictions no longer exist, they, like wild-fire, flow out athwart
civilization and, on occasion, do not stay their fury until they
have utterly consumed it.

Ethics, as customs, manners, conventional morals and
fashions, are, when in a healthy state, mobile in nature. To
discover whether any of these transient virtues are growing
vicious simply requires the application of common-sense. That
is, a comparison should be made between the effects of the doubtful
virtue and the ethical objective — survival with moral profit,
any deficiency being made good by action adapted to circum-
stances. Unfortunately, as common-sense is the rarest of all
the senses, this simple process of gauging the temperature of the
social body by this ethical thermometer is, more often than not,
attempted by legal casuistry and a reshuffling of letters and
words : an action which would do credit to an Assyrian sorcerer
yelling barbarous names at the moon.

Besides those codes of morals which stimulate or restrict
the evolution of the race, innumerable traditions exist both as
stimulants and as narcotics. The power of tradition is immense,
both as a beneficial influence and as a malevolent one, according
to its relationship to circumstances.

Normally the origin of a tradition is to be sought for in

The Ethics of War 61

some successful individual action which has resulted in a better-
ment— intellectual, moral or material. Success depends, to a
very great extent, on creative brain power and opportunity,
which is nothing less than the exploitation of existing circum-
stances by existing means. This cause, as far as the individual
is concerned, is temporary in nature. With a man's death his
creative energy ceases, circumstances change and his theories
of success lose their applicability.

In the individual, common-sense usually succeeds in pruning
out dead personal traditions, because the individual nearly always
possesses creative power of thought. The individual has to live
on his own ability and energy, and, as an individual, he generally
refuses to commit suicide by adhering to the obsolete traditions
of his family ; besides this, these traditions, being for the most
part unrecorded, die with their begetters. This is, however, far
from being the case when traditions spring from collective acts
or are absorbed by congeries of men. To the crowd the novel is,
more frequently than not, the heterodox, because the crowd
possesses little or no power of reason, and acts of individual
ability irritate and insult it by diverging from what it accepts
unthinkingly as established truths. These collective traditions
grow into static and, frequently, meaningless shibboleths, which
the receptively-minded accept without criticism, because they do
not possess the ability to formulate it. They grow into vested
interests and prejudices which clog all progress. He who has
does not wish to part with what he has, even if it be but an
irrational idea, and the more he is induced to part with it,
the more prejudicial does he become. He fights the new idea,
he slanders it, he anathematizes it, for progress is unpalatable
to his static taste. He wishes to be left alone and do what his
father and grandfather did before him, for what he has inherited,
however rotten it may be, is a personal and treasured possession,
it is part of himself, for acquisitiveness is an instinct in
man.

When, in place of the individual, the crowd is considered,
these vested interests and prejudices become deeply rooted in its

62 The Reformation of War

nature, and in no assemblies is this more apparent than in those
which represent religious orders, political denominations and
military castes. Leaving the first out of account, I will examine
the remaining two because they are closely related, every civilized
army being managed by a political department of the government
of the nation to which it belongs.

State departmental rule, I will assert before I prove it, is
a system of management normally founded on common-nonsense,
or upon action adapted to traditions in their static forms of
interests and prejudices. What do we see ?

A body of men precipitated into office from the test tubes
of examinations which, at best, only prove the blotting-paper
nature of their brains — their power of absorbing ink visually.
Once deposited alembic-like on an office stool, the official
process of mental distillation begins. A fixed salary sterilizes
their creative powers ; promotion by seniority demonstrates
to them the uselessness of ability and the value of senility, and
the prospects of a pension and the possibilit}/ of losing it, should
they court disfavour, shackle and gag them — mind, nerve and
jaw. They become monks in a monastic institution and repeat
rituals which have lost their meaning, magical mantras which
render their thoughts comatose to all reality beyond their files.
They grow in strength and breed families called sub-departments ;
fill these with branch memoranda, which are revolved in never
ceasing revolution like the prayer-wheels of the Mahayana
Buddhists. It is so easy, so soothing, so absolutely safe — thus
time, the controlling factor in life, is drowned in a sea of ink.

Then one day, these Trappists, fat on mental indolence, are
awakened into the reality of a common-sense life outside them
by seditions among those on whom they have successfully eked
out their anaemic existence. War is in men's minds ; creative
thought is stalking through the land ; the race instincts are once
again abroad. But the monks cannot see them in their true
form. In place they see devils, and horrified they return to their
files, splash ink and rotate their wheels with as unchaste a frenzy
as tame mice in a rotary cage. Thus are great nations periodically

The Ethics of War 63

inflicted with a fever by the insanitary mental conditions of
their government departments, their political incantations, their
prayer-wheels, their files, their ink and their lack of human-
touch.

In the armies of most modern States, we find the same cramping
influence of tradition at work and due to the same causes :
fixed pay, promotion by seniority and mental emasculation by
pensions. There is little or no incentive to creative thought
and every incentive to remain static. The whole atmosphere
is unethical, that is unprogressive ; consequently, soldiers become
monastic in mind ; they think in meaningless shibboleths, perform
unintelligible rituals, and base their duties on established rules
and the dotting of an " i " elaborately legislated for in some
obscure and rigid regulation. They are Homoiousians or Homo-
ousians in thought. The result of this is that it is not age which
renders them impotent to the realities of war, but the gelding-
knife of fixed ideas. Their thinking power is rendered sterile
by the darkness of unreality. Like weeds growing in a cellar,
so do armies become lank and lean in mind and colourless in
intellect by gazing at the walls of the mental dungeons in which
they are imprisoned.

Common-sense is again the remedy, common-sense which
replaces common-nonsense and which asks : " What is the
object of war ? " And which answers : " The security of
existence, prosperity and honour by the fullest exploitation of
the people and their resources." As long as this common-sense
question is not asked by the nation and the answer demanded
of its army, so long will this army remain an immoral association,
that is one which does not fulfil or guarantee the ethical needs
of the people. Salvation is through common-sense, which should
be the supreme canon and law of the military hierarchy.

During periods of stress, such as war, the character of a nation
reveals itself. If the war be unimportant, its loss may not
materially affect the nation, yet, nevertheless, it will be a blow
registered against its prestige, its moral capital upon the stability
of which so much of its material prosperity is founded. Its

64 The Reformation of War

credit will be lowered in the eyes of others, and a series of such
blows may exhaust the national moral to such an extent that
the prestige of the nation is laid bare to a knock-out blow. If
the war be important, victory becomes vital, and the nation
subconsciously realizing this, sets to work to divest itself of
the formalities of everyday life. Traditions one by one are
discarded and replaced by common-sense actions, and, as this
process grows, the great stable and foundational race ethics
reveal themselves, and the nation stands or falls on its character,
to which is intimately related the justice of its cause.

Thus are the ethics of race progress frequently refined by
war by being liberated from the jargon of meaningless shibboleths,
the small-talk of politics and the strangling customs of bygone
ages. War sweeps these aside like a storm of rain cleansing the
foul streets of a dirty city. The process is uncomfortable,
especially for those who are caught in the storm, but the result is
the reinvigoration of the race through the self-revelation of its
character. It finds that it possesses something more precious
than conventions, grades, rules and regulations. It finds that,
though these under certain conditions are inevitable, they are
not essential, and to be purged from them, even but for a time,
is a stimulus to the national health. It finds that it has a will
to accept self-sacrifice and a soul above the pettiness of
peace.

War is a great physician, a great medicine, a great purge.
As the body of man, unless his body be exceptionally well
regulated, requires an occasional aperient — a dose of calomel,
so does a nation require an occasional war to free it from the
costiveness of traditions ; and, if foreign wars be rendered
impossible, then Nature will simply replace them by internal
revolutions. Thus we see that war may sometimes become an
ethical factor of great value. This being so, I will now consider
the nature of the ethical object of war.

As the military object of war is to defeat the enemy, and as
the economic object is to add to the prosperity of the nation, so
is the ethical object to enhance the national character, that is

The Ethics of War 65

to increase its respect in the eyes not only of the enemy but of
neutral nations. A man who fights cleanly is always applauded
even if he lose ; consequently, under certain circumstances, it is
even more important to win the ethical objective than the military
one ; these circumstances depending almost entirely on the men-
tality of the combatants. If their ideals be of a material nature
then the military objective becomes the most important ; if of
a moral, then the ethical objective is paramount.

In most cases the endurance of a war is based on the ethical
nature of its cause. If race survival be this cause, then the
war is founded on justice, and, as justice is a common-sense
virtue, whether the artificial laws and customs of civilization
prohibit wars or not, wars will continue, for the greatest of all
laws is the unwritten and unwritable law of self and racial
preservation. A man steals another man's wife : this is a
definite common-sense injustice in a community where the
men and women are numerically equal. Should, however,
the number of women fall, I will suppose, to half that of the num-
ber of men, it is manifestly unjust to the race, whatever it may
be to the individuals, that one man should have two wives
or even that one man should possess one wife. Consequently
wife-stealing ceases to be an act of injustice and becomes of
necessity a natural virtue ; for the strongest and most cunning
will come into possession of the women, and, consequently, the
race will prosper through an act which may be classed by the
weaker party as one of the grossest injustice and immorality.

So also in war is the ethical process very similar ; justice
depending on the instincts which underlie civilization and the
conditions which surround it, and not on the conventions whicn
veneer it. If a war be waged for the personal benefit of in-
dividuals, it normally will prove a vicious war, but if for the
benefit of the race, a virtuous one If, further, this war be fought
not only for the benefit but for the self-preservation of the race
fighting it, it will then become a common-sense war of necessity,
that is a righteous war, which means, to refuse to wage it would
be the grossest act of national immorality.

5

66 The Reformation of War

Great wars directed towards an ethical objective may conse-
quently be looked upon as a new dispensation which breaks up
the atheism of peace begotten by long periods of personal in-
dulgence in place of racial improvement. Peace solidifies
customs, and customs and traditions strangle the national will.
Then comes war and sweeps these aside ; it ploughs through
accepted dogmas and roots up the weeds of civilization, preparing
the ground for the next and better crop. War proves a nation
not only capable of mastering its enemies, but of mastering
itself ; of sacrificing interests and prejudices for the common
good, and of emerging from wrack and ruin, sorrow and woe,
cleaner mentally and socially than before the sword was drawn.

Wars between great nations seem terrible to mean little
men, men meanly brought up and meanly educated, men who can
only see great things in a mean little way. But indeed such wars
are grand and glorious when compared to the hideous strife of
mediaeval man, of unorganized mobs, of murderous bullies, and
of that great degenerate scum which bubbles up upon the surface
of a nation at every crisis. War may be ghastly or sublime ;
it is both, but Nature cares neither for the one nor for the other ;
she orders evolution, and evolve we must, on her lines and not
on those expectorated by some decayed pedagogue. On the
lines of war, in which a nation accumulates the wealth of the
weak, thus are the strong rewarded ; of peace, in which the strong
develop their spoil, thus are the cunning recompensed ; of
commercial war, in which the workers accumulate the riches
of the masters ; of commercial peace, in which wealth is developed
and diffused throughout the world. Peace in decay is more
terrible than even a war of wantonness and destruction, as
Carlyle so dramatically exclaims :

" Call ye that a Society, cries he again, where there is no longer
any Social Idea extant ; not so much as the Idea of a common Home,
but only of a common overcrowded Lodging-house ? Where each,
isolated, regardless of his neighbours, clutches what he can get,
and cries ' Mine ! ' and calls it Peace, because in the cut-purse and
cut-throat scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort,
can be employed ? "

The Ethics of War 67

When this type of peace begins to asphyxiate a nation, it is
time to press our swords, however rusty, upon the grindstones
of war and cut the throat of the wanton who has deceived
us.

As the ethical object of a nation is to gain a moral or common-
sense superiority over its neighbours, that is a reputation for
honesty and fearlessness in all their many forms, it stands to
reason that this objective must be maintained when peace gives
way to war, unless ethics are to be cast overboard. Normally,
in a healthy nation there should be no break in policy ; conse-
quently, in war the policy of rightfulness must be continued
without interruption if an ethical profit is to be secured.

In the past, and to a very considerable extent at present, the
traditional methods of peace have not been based on a policy of
rightfulness but on one of compromise between what nationally
is considered good and evil. Most civilized governments have
attempted through diplomacy (the object of which should be to
guarantee and safeguard peaceful prosperity and honour) to
divide the nations which surround them into two categories —
future friends and future foes (the good and evil). These cate-
gories have then been subjected to a diplomatic bombardment,
the former with moralizing impressions and the latter with de-
moralizing ones. In this bloodless contest the main weapons
have been the newspapers of prospective friends and foes, over
which frequently controlling interests are obtained. If this
unethical process of waging war continues, then, at a near date,
we may find that one nation will become the actual owner or
hidden controller of another nation's press, and that the words
which express the policy of an enemy are thrust down the throats
of ignorant people like home-made jam. Words, much more so
than thoughts, are omnipotent among crowds, but they must be
intelligible, and if the difference originating with Babel can be
overcome by an international press, the nation which can control
its interests will be in a powerful position to poison the minds of
its selected foes. Such action as this I believe to be grossly
immoral, and that, in place of its reducing the incidence of war,

5*

68 The Reformation of War

it will greatly increase it, especially war in its most disastrous
form, namely, civil war.

If this unethical form of diplomacy continue, then it will
follow that the grand strategy of the nation, that is the utilization
of the national energies for purposes of war, will follow suit.
Thus, if it be discovered that a nation's mentality is represented
by 10% — jy, x representing his possible assets and y his probable
deficits, in peace time a prospective adversary might so direct his
grand strategy as to reduce x and to increase y. Thus, if one of
the x's represents political stability, an unscrupulous nation
might attempt to reduce this power for war by sowing seeds of
political discord in its competitor's government. If one of the
y's be social unrest, it might decide to increase its disruptive
influence by stimulating its strength. The first of the means
whereby to accomplish this is, as I have already stated, the con-
trol of the victim's press, the second the control of the victim's
banks. The former constitutes the surest means of disruption
and the latter the surest of obtaining information, for, of all
records, a nation's pass-books will furnish the most accurate
source of information regarding the lives of the leaders of the
victim nation, who may, consequently, be blackmailed into
declaring war or maintaining peace.

The above processes of corrupting a nation's " will to win '
by depriving him of the " power to will " during days of peace are,
I affirm, both immoral and Machiavellian, and, worse still, they are
foolish, because, in place of enhancing the virtues of a nation which
so acts, they render visible its own vices. No man of worth will
trust a cheat, a bully, or a cad, however skilful and successful he
may be. For a time he may knuckle under, but only to await his
chance ; then he will turn on the trickster and rend him, and rightly
he will show no mercy. Rightfulness begets mercy in the heart
even of a ferocious enemy, and every nation should remember
that, in war, it may be defeated, and that, if defeated, according
to its past deeds it will be judged and punished.

In spite of the above opinion, war, it must be realized, is not a
tourney but a life struggle for existence in which there is no belt

The Ethics of War 69

which may not be hit under, and, as long as traditional diplomacy
exists, this belt will be hit under, for, as I have shown, the ethical
objective of war finds its origin in the ethical objective of the
nation during the peace which preceded the war. In type, it will
follow type, though the tune is played in a higher octave.

Should the ethical outlook of the nation be material and bar-
barous, so will its actions in war be material and barbarous ;
consequently, to blame its soldiers for acting materially or brutally
is illogical, for they are but the instruments of the policy which
has been established by the nation during peace time. The im-
moralities of war are normally but a continuation of the im-
moralities of peace. Like an individual soldier or an army, war,
as a whole, possesses its moral side, which is the spiritual expres-
sion of the accumulated impressions that each individual member
of the nation has received during peace time. Consequently, if
wars are to be made less barbarous, it is useless restricting the
bodily and mechanical activities of the soldier, for these are
not ends in themselves. Instead, the spiritual and ethical out-
look of the nation must be improved. If war is to be made
less brutal, then indeed must philanthropists watch the cradles
and the nursery in place of the arsenals and the barrack-
room.

Besides the ethical object of the war, viewed as a great
national benefit, since time immemorial war has had its tradi-
tions and customs which accelerate or retard victory according as
their values may be equated in terms of common-sense. Thus,
to assassinate prisoners is not so much an immoral act as an un-
economical one. If prisoners are killed off, it will mean that the
enemy will fight to the death ; that his men will retaliate by
killing the prisoners they capture ; that the use of prisoners as
labourers or hostages will be lost, and that the moral effect of the
savagery resulting will upset that cool, deliberate determination
which is so necessary in order to control the actions of soldiers on
the battlefield. Assassination is, therefore, quite as much a vice
in war as in peace. Thus again, the sacking of towns and the
killing of civilian inhabitants is wrong, unless these acts can find a

70 The Reformation of War

commensurate compensation of real military value ; not so much
because they entail the loss of property and life, but because they
lead to the moral disintegration of an army and sow seeds of
hatred which will survive the war.

It must not, however, be forgotten that, while a few years ago,
armies alone went forth to battle, to-day entire nations go to war,
not only as soldiers but as the moral and material suppliers of
soldiers. This being so, we find that, while a short time back,
it was clearly possible to differentiate between the military and
ethical objectives of nations at war, to-day this differentiation is
becoming more and more complex ; so much so, that both these
objectives are likely to coincide, and, when this takes place, to
attack the civilian workers of a nation will then be as justifiable
an act of war as to attack its soldiers.

The ethical traditions of war have little to do with the paper
customs and usages manufacturered by elderly and talkative
busy-bodies in the quietude of philanthropic debate, but much with
unwritten acts of chivalry which refine the brutality of the art.
Many of these acts survive to grow into shibboleths which become
astringents to victory. Others, more stable in nature, prove true
solvents of future difficulties, and these, as might be expected, are
based on common-sense. Chivalry, in the broadest meaning of
the word, is the cultivation of respect in an enemy for or by his
opponent. Outstanding acts of courage, of courtesy, of humanity,
give birth to a feeling of superiority or inferiority according as one
side excels or falls short of the other. This feeling of superiority,
of noblesse oblige, is purely ethical, yet it forms the basis of the
physical superiority which victory demands. The side which, in
war, first attains a superiority in chivalry is the side which attains
a spiritual victory over its enemy, a victory which normally not
only precedes a material success but which wins the ethical ob-
jective of war, which is the true foundation of the peace which
follows it.

These acts of chivalry arc to a great extent individual acts
based on the individual culture of the race. An army of gaol-
birds, however well disciplined it may be, will, on the battlefield

The Ethics of War 71

revert to type directly restraint is released ; so also will an army
of cultured men ; but the difference between these two types is,
that while in the former case the soldier reverts to a criminal, in
the latter he usually continues as an honourable man, for honour
is part of his permanent status. On individual acts of honour is
chivalry founded.

In many respects war may be compared to a game. It has its
rules, which are elastic enough to be of general application ; but
there is this difference. While in a game the referee is represented
by a third party, a disinterested judge, in war there is no third
party, the referee being replaced by the conscience of the com-
batants themselves. As I have already remarked, there is no
belt which may not be hit under ; nevertheless, though this be the
case, a wise fighter will think twice before hitting below a certain
moral line, because the tactical advantage accruing may be can-
celled out by the ethical loss resulting. If in a game of football,
however,the referee abscond, and one side, arming itself with sticks,
assails the other, it would be ethically and competitively wrong
if the side so attacked did not protect itself. Ethically so be-
cause brutality would usually triumph ; competitively, because
the unarmed side would inevitably be driven from the field.
In such circumstances common-sense again holds final judgment,
as it always must ; and when, in its accepted forms of chivalry,
it can no longer be applied, then application must be sought for
through any and every means which will wipe out the insult of a
dishonourable opposition. Men who take on the nature of vermin
must be exterminated, and in their extermination is the entire
moral progress of mankind moved one step nearer its final and
unknown goal. To refuse to use base means against a base foe is
to set a premium on crime, and in war there are crimes as well as
honours. To tolerate crime is neither to act chivalrously
towards a criminal or chivalrously towards oneself ; it is the act
of a fool, that is of a man who values his self-preservation at the
price of a custom which ceasing to be marketable has become
counterfeit.

Ultimately, from acts of chivalry on the battlefield do we soar

72 The Reformation of War

to those acts which form the ethics of grand strategy, the fuller
meaning of which I will discuss in Chapter XI. To damage a
nation morally during days of peace is not good enough ; it is but
a poor endeavour, which normally must bring but little profit.
Ethically, during war, as I will show, grand strategy does aim at
demoralizing the enemy, yet also does it consist in the enhance-
ment of a nation's worth in the eyes of its actual or potential
enemies. Integrity, honour, justice and courage are the weapons
of the grand strategist, which not only demonstrate a nation's
moral worth but its martial power. The cultivation of these in
peace time forms the backbone of success in war.

As long as war is looked upon as a calamity, a kind of inter-
national influenza, so long will the true ethics of war be obscured.
Up to the present it has been of necessity calamitous, for the
means of waging war have been means of destruction, though these
means have shown a steady improvement since the days when
primitive man wielded the flint axe. I will show, I hope quite
clearly, that modern science has now placed at the disposal of the
soldier means which it was totally impossible to make use of a few
years ago, and that these means will humanize war and raise it
from its present barbarous footing to a higher ethical position.
While, in the past, because in war men had to be killed, no civi-
lized soldier has suggested that, consequently, nations through
their peace policy should aim at secret assassination ; so I believe
that, in the future, when it is realized that the most humane
method of waging war is the moral attack on the enemy's nerves,
no civilized soldier will suggest that the peace policy of war should
be based on international terror. This may be the method of
atavistic revolutionaries, social throwbacks to the days of Nero,
but I fervently hope that they will not be countenanced by
soldiers or sane politicians.

For these views to be accepted by armies, there must be a
radical change in their political and military mentality. New
ideas must be considered freely, criticized freely and judged
publicly, and if found more profitable than existing ones — ac-
cepted. When in a normally healthy family a child is born, the

The Ethics of War 73

parents are not only congratulated but are proud and pleased at
the event. When, however, in an army some unfortunate in-
dividual gives birth to a new idea, he is execrated, and why ?
Because any new idea is apt to disturb the vested interests and
prejudices which bulk so large in military organization. It is
the old question of creative thought, the irresistible force, seeking
for a niche in the stable opinions which surround it. It is again
the old question of the selection of the fittest by means of a
struggle between fit and unfit.

The idea is the child of circumstances ; it does not spring
fully armed from a single head, but is engendered in this head by
the rottenness of its surroundings. It is by observing rottenness
that purity, or improvement, arises ; consequently, the lustiness
of the rottenness is very natural, for rottenness is also striving
to endure.

When we glance through military history, we find that most
new ideas, which eventually materialize into theories or concrete
form, originate in piratical exploits outside the existing military
organization, and that only after a period of virulent abuse do
they become adjuncts or undesirable foster-children in the
military family.

The idea proves its value and its champions exaggerate its
powers. Opinion now accepts the idea under the covering fire
of an offensive directed against the exaggerations. The idea
is attached to the traditional elements and begins to consume
them, until from the ashes of the old organization arises a new,
which usually proves that the exaggerations fall totally short
of the full development of the idea. Everyone is now contented ;
the originators of the idea because they have actually outstepped
their predictions ; the old school also, for, after all, were not these
predictions incorrect ? Circumstances having proved them to
have fallen sadly short of the mark. The new idea, consequently,
is accepted, and, under the new school, which step by step adopts
the mentality of the old school, stabilizes, and in its turn has to
be broken up by another volcanic eruption.

It is now my intention in the remaining ten Chapters of this

74 The Reformation of War

book to place a few new ideas before the reader, so that he
may judge whether present-day military, naval and air force
organizations are the best in order to maintain or enforce policy,
and if not, whether my suggestions are better or worse. If better,
then I trust that he will support them, for our present defence
forces are costing £150,000,000 a year.

IY

THE LAST LAP OF THE PHYSICAL EPOCH

IN this Chapter I intend examining the nature and character
of the Great War of 1914-1918, and to show that, tactically,
it was based on a gigantic misconception of the true purpose
of war, which is to enforce the policy of a nation at the least cost
to itself and enemy and, consequently, to the world, for so in-
tricately are the resources of civilized states interwoven that
to destroy any one country is simultaneously to wound all other
nations.

In August, 1914, it cannot be said that the armies of Europe
were unprepared for war ; they were prepared, and to the
proverbial last gaiter button. But for what kind of war, this
is the crucial question ?

Ever since 1866 and 1870, the eyes of the General Staffs of
Europe had been blinded by the brilliance of von Moltke's
strategy. Soldiers had gazed on the bayonet points of Sadowa
and Sedan until they were hypnotized by these great battles,
and, under the influence of this hypnosis, they dreamt of the
next war as an immense 1870 operation involving unlimited
slaughter.

Their doctrine was founded on two tremendous fallacies.
First, that policy is best enforced by destruction ; secondly,
that military perfection is based on numbers of soldiers. They
did not realize that Sadowa and Sedan were won by the weapons
of 1866 and 1870. That these weapons had long been replaced
by more effective ones. That during the forty years following the
capitulation of Paris, science, industry and means of transport

75

76 The Reformation of War

had revolutionized the civilized nations of the world. Not
realizing this vast change in the conditions which would surround
the next war, and meditating on war as a thing in itself, as an
end rather than as a means towards an end, the General Staffs
of Europe calculated the respective strengths of their armies
in tons of human flesh. Then, in 1914, these armies marched
after phantoms which, like will-o'-the-wisps, led them to the
slaughter-houses of the Grand Couronne, the Marne, Aisne, and
Ypres, and, at length, to a partial realization that war is a living
art, a system of knowledge and action which must be fed on the
civil sciences and nurtured on the civil industries in order to
maintain its strength and purpose — the enforcement of a nation's
policy with the least detriment to the peace which must follow
final victory.

In their conservatism and lethargy armies are indeed extra-
ordinary organizations. Browsing through peace time, like
human cattle they are slaughtered during war. So constituted
that ability has the greatest difficulty to struggle to the top,
the selection of the fittest to command has seldom a refining
influence on their constitutions ; consequently, when a great
Captain does arise, irrespective of the circumstances which
surrounded his successes, his system, even if he has no system,
is turned into an infallible doctrine, a dogma which becomes a
millstone. Marshal Saxe, from whose works I have already
quoted, realized this full well when he wrote :

" Gustavus Adolphus invented a method which was followed by
his scholars and carried into execution with great success ; but
since his time there has been a gradual decline amongst us, which
must be imputed to our having blindly adopted maxims, without
any examination of the principles on which they are founded ; . . .
from whence it appears that our present practice is nothing more
than a passive compliance with customs, the grounds of which we
are absolute strangers to."

Such was the military outlook before the Seven Years' War,
and such was the military outlook in July, 1914.

From 1870 onwards, a new civilization had arisen in Europe,
based on the enormous growth of railways and the facilities

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 77

rendered possible by the motor car and lorry. Soldiers had
studied these means, not in order to mechanicalize armies, that
is to replace muscular by mechanical power, but from the point
of view that these means of movement would enable an enemy's
frontier to be submerged under a veritable inundation of flesh.
Millions of men would sweep forward and, like immense clouds
of locusts, would gain victory by sheer weight of numbers. This
doctrine was so simple ; moreover the railway appeared to render
it possible. Hence the horde armies of 1914.

The strategist had, however, forgotten the tactician. No
man could control such vast numbers of men, which, in France,
formed two great human stop-butts. This was a colossal error,
but not the biggest, for the strategist and the tactician both
forgot human nature.

The supreme duty of the soldier is to fight and not to die.
As, in 1914, armies could not live on the surface of the battlefield,
there was no choice but to go under the surface ; consequently,
trenches five hundred miles long were dug, and armies, like foxes,
went to earth ; because, since 1870, the magazine rifle, the
machine gun and the quick-firing field cannon had replaced the
weapons of that day. Consequently, the tactics of Sedan had
been rendered quite obsolete — almost as obsolete as the electrical
sciences of 1870 would be if compared to those of 19 14.

In order to secure these trenches from surprise attack, each
side turned itself into an immense spider, and spun around its
entrenchments hundreds of thousands of miles of steel web —
the common commercial article known as barbed wire, miles of
which had been used in South Africa, in 1901, and hundreds of
miles of it in the defences of Port Arthur, in 1904. But these
wars, especially the latter, though closely studied by soldiers,
were examined through 1870 spectacles, and their tactical lessons
were blurred through strategical study. Yet one man at least,
though not a soldier, did clearly see what the influence of modern
weapons on the traditional methods would lead to. This man
was Mr. I. S. Bloch, a banker in Warsaw, who, in 1897, published
a book in six volumes on " The War of the Future." At the time,

78 The Reformation of War

soldiers derided Mr. Bloch's ideas and deductions ; a wiser pro-
cedure would have been to have read his work and to have
absorbed a little knowledge. In the English translation of the
last volume, which was published in 1899 under the title " Is War
Impossible," Mr. Bloch writes :

" At first there will be an increased slaughter — increased slaugh-
ter on so terrible a scale as to render it impossible to get troops to
push the battle to a decisive issue. They will try to, thinking
that they are fighting under the old conditions, and they will learn
such a lesson that they will abandon the attempt for ever. Then,
instead of a war fought out to the bitter end in a series of decisive
battles, we shall have as a substitute a long period of continually
increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. The war,
instead of being a hand-to-hand contest, in which the combatants
measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of
stalemate, in which, neither army being willing to get at the other,
both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, threaten-
ing the other, but never being able to deliver a final and decisive
attack. . . . That is the future of war — not fighting, but famine,
not the slaying of men, but the bankruptcy of nations and the
break-up of the whole social organization. . . . Everybody will
be entrenched in the next war. It will be a great war of entrench-
ments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his
rifle. . . . All wars will of necessity partake of the character of
siege operations. . . . Your soldiers may fight as they please ;
the ultimate decision is in the hands of famine. ..."

The above constitutes an accurate forecast of events in
1914-1917, which were rehearsed ten years previously, on a
smaller scale, at Nan Shan, Liao Yang and Mukden. Their
deduction was a matter of pure common-sense. Given a magazine
rifle firing ten aimed rounds a minute, a machine gun firing
five hundred rounds and a field gun firing ten rounds, even in
1904 it was beyond question that the tactics of 1870 were as
unsuited to twentieth century weapons as the machine tools
of an 1870 workshop would be unsuited to a twentieth century
manufactory. In connection with this criticism, which I believe
to be sound, though possibly unpalatable, I will hazard to quote
two personal experiences. In April, 1914, when a student at
the Camberley Staff College, I had occasion to visit an Artillery

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 79

Practice Camp at Larkhill (Salisbury Plain), and so struck was
I by the power of the quick-firing field gun that I wrote the
following :

" The leading lesson which I learnt whilst at this camp only-
accentuated what reading had already led me to suppose, namely,
that artillery is to-day the superior arm, and that, consequently,
battles will become more static, i.e., entrenched. That its power
is so great that the infantry assault will be chiefly rendered possible
by the demoralization of the enemy by means of artillery fire. This
logically leads to penetration in place of envelopment as the grand
tactical principle of the attack, because freedom of manoeuvre will
be limited by wire and field works ; to an enormous expenditure of
ammunition at the decisive point, and to consideration whether a
special motor ammunition column should not be formed to supply
alone the guns taking part in the decisive artillery attack."

This deduction was not accepted.

During the same month I wrote a memoir on the tactics of
penetration* in which I considered the tactics of the next war.
In it I said :

' To-day we have, besides the magazine-rifle, the characteristics
of which are understood, two, comparatively speaking, new weapons :
the quick-firing field gun and the machine gun. Realizing this,
we can predict with absolute certainty that the general who makes
the truest use of these weapons, that is so deploys his men that their
fullest power is attained, will win, unless he is hopelessly outnumbered.
If this general further devise a system of deployment which will
not only accentuate the power of these weapons, but also the defects
in his opponent's formation, he will win irrespective of numbers,
as surely as 1,400 Swiss beat 15,000 Austrians at Mortgarten, and as
surely as 90,000 Austrians were beaten by 33,000 Prussians at
Leuthen. This is a certainty.

" From 1840 to the close of the nineteenth century, improve-
ments steadily forced the rifle to the fore. A similar progress did
not take place in the manufacture of cannon, breech-loading guns
not being finally adopted by the British Army until 1886. By the
beginning of the present century we find the rifle master of all it
surveyed ; machine guns were being still used experimentally,
trajectories were slightly more curved than to-day, indirect laying
was only exceptionally employed ; but of all the changes intro-

* Published in November, 1914, in the Journal of the Royal United Service
Institution under the title " The Tactics of Penetration. A Counterblast to
German Numerical Superiority."

so The Reformation of War

duced since the Russo-Japanese war, the general adoption of quick-
firing artillery by civilized armies is out and out the greatest. This
gun, if correctly employed, will, I feel, revolutionize the present
theory of war by substituting as the leading grand tactical principle
penetration for that of envelopment.

" To-day, on account of the rapidity of fire of the modern field
gun, there will be no necessity either to hold back guns in reserve,
or to withdraw them from their positions, for all that will be neces-
sary will be to mass ammunition opposite a definite point, or a topo-
graphically weak point, or a point which has become or is likely to
become a decisive point, so that the guns commanding this point,
few or many in number, may pour a continuous and terrific deluge
of shells on this point, and so enable the decisive attack to proceed
against it. Admitting that this is feasible, then the problem resolves
itself into one of supplying these breaching batteries with sufficient
ammunition ; this problem should not be a difficult one to solve
now that motor transport is in general use.

" If I am right in this deduction, then I am right in adding : that
that side which can first throw its adversary on the defensive, and,
by so doing, can select at will the decisive point of attack — or which
can, through a careful study of the ground, foresee this decisive
point, or any moderately weak point — has all to gain by so doing.
The defence cannot gauge, or will have the greatest difficulty in
gauging, even by means of aerial reconnaissance, the point against
which the decisive attack is going to be launched if the assailants' pre-
paratory attack be violently offensive. All it can do is to attempt
to take the attack, or assault, in flank, just as the 52nd
Regiment took the Old Guard of Napoleon in flank at the close of
the Battle of Waterloo, or as Colonel Daubeney, in his astonishing
charge at Inkerman, cut the great Russian trunk column in two
as it neared the Home Ridge."

I then examined the dangers of the above proposals and
suggested the use of the machine gun in order to lessen them.
I wrote :

' There is as much diffierence between machine-gun and infantry
fire to-day as there was between light infantry and heavy infantry
fire a hundred years ago. So great is this difference that we might
almost say that the light infantry of the future will be evolved from
the machine gunners of the present. That is that the assaulting
column of the future will be flanked by these terror-spreading
weapons, and that these new light infantrymen, like the old, will not

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 81

only precede the assaulting column by working up close to the line
of the holding attack, but will flank it on both sides, producing a
somewhat similar effect on the hostile line as grape, canister and
case shot did during the first fifty years of the last century."

I concluded this memoir by saying :

" I have no doctrine to preach, for I believe in none. Every
concrete case demands its own particular solution, and for this
solution all that we require is skill and knowledge, skill in the use
of our weapons, knowledge of our enemy's formations.

" A physician who is slave to a doctrine, as was the famous Doctor
Sangrado in ' Gil Bias,' ends by killing his patients ; a general
who is under the spell of some such shibboleth as the oblique-
order, envelopment, penetration, or the offensive d outrance, ends
by destroying his army. There is no difference. If there is a
doctrine at all, then it is common-sense, that is, action adapted to
circumstances.

"I do not lay down that I am right in basing my proposed de-
ployment for penetration principally on the power of quick-firing
artillery ; but all I can say is this : that a careful study of past
and present history has led me to the following conclusions :

(i) " That weapons when correctly handled seldom fail to gain
victory.

(2) "That armies are more often ruined by dogmas springing from
their former successes than by the skill of their opponents. . . ."

The criticism on this memoir was : " Lacking in sound
military judgment."

I must offer the reader an apology for the introduction of so
much personal matter, and I must ask him to believe me when
I say that I have not done this in order to pat my prevision
on the back, but to show that it is possible for a soldier, possessing
a normal standard of intelligence, to be wise before the event.
So frequently have I been told how easy is it to be wise after
the event (which is surely better than never being wise at all) ,
that I have quoted the above extracts from my writings, extracts
containing military opinons which, though imperfect, were not
lacking in sound military judgment, as the history of the war
testifies, in order that such of my readers who are not altogether
blinded by tradition may have some confidence in the new
ideas contained in this book. I do not ask them to swallow

6

82 The Reformation of War

these ideas whole, but I do ask them not to proclaim them
indigestible before mentally they have tasted them. I will now
return to the magical year — 1866.

From the battle of Sadowa onwards, tactical envelopment
became a shibboleth, and any idea of defensive warfare a heresy.
Not that envelopment in itself is not an admirable manoeuvre,
but that its effectiveness depends on circumstances, the conditions
of the moment under which the principles of war have to be
applied. So also is the offensive a military virtue, but this in
no way means that the defensive is a military vice.

In August, 1914, the German armies were drawn up in phal-
angial formation from Aachen to Basle. Their right was to
wheel through Belgium, round Paris, and then advance eastwards,
sweeping the armies of France into Germany and Switzerland.
This plan was extraordinarily simple and the railways appeared
to render it possible. It was so simple that the German General
Staff were apparently of the opinion, as their system of promotion
did not guarantee their possessing a skilled leader when war
broke out, that genius could be replaced by mechanical move-
ment ; in other words, that the goose step could replace intellect !
The unexpected was expunged ; consequently, a reserve to meet
it was unnecessary. They violated the principles of concentration
and economy of force, and sealed their fate by so doing.

The French General Staff must have realized the extreme
likelihood of the German right wing marching through Belgium.
Bearing this in mind, where then should their reserve army have
been ? At Paris, because Paris is the biggest railway centre in
north-eastern France. Where were their reserves ? Near Ver-
dun ! Even if the Germans had restricted their front of attack to
the line Thionville-Basle, the best position of the French reserves
was Paris ; even if they had proceeded by sea and disembarked
their armies at Cherbourg, Brest or Bordeaux ; even if they had
landed them at Toulon or marched through Italy or Switzerland,
the only strategic position for the reserves was Paris ! Why
were the reserves near Verdun ? Because, after the crushing
defeats sustained by the French armies in 1870, this staff had

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 83

turned to that oracle of modern warfare — Napoleon, and in his
wars had sought an answer to the problem of future victory.
In his many campaigns, they discovered that he frequently
made use of a lozenge formation — an advanced guard, two strong
wings and a central reserve. Here then was the secret of success.
So they drew up their plan accordingly, forgetting that, in the
days of Napoleon, railways did not exist, and that, consequently,
his reserves were so placed as to be within easy marching distance
of the other forces. Had the French General Staff done what
Napoleon, in the strategical circumstances which railways had
created, could scarcely have failed to do — concentrate every
available man at Paris, wait, see and spring, instead of the
French Armies being swept into Switzerland, the whole of the
German right wing would have been annihilated and, quite
possibly, the war would have been won in six weeks.

"It is the man, not men who count in war," once said
Napoleon. I will add to this aphorism : such a man does not
turn his brain into a museum for past battles — for the only war
for him is the next war !

Once the first great operation of the war — the German en-
velopment of the French armies, had been frustrated by the
counter-attack of the Allies during the latter stages of that
series of battles known as the battle of the Marne, equilibrium
was established on the slopes of the river Aisne. This condition
was followed by a race to the coast and culminated in the defeat
of the Germans at the first battle of Ypres, at which battle tradi-
tional warfare on the Western Front terminated. Henceforth
for several years the war on this front was destined to become a
war of entrenchments, a siege, and the main weapon in the
armoury of the besieger is famine.

Meanwhile, at sea another war was in progress, a war but
distantly connected with the land operations except for one
incident which in fact constituted the most astonishing naval
operation of the war.

On August 4, 1914, two German warships, the Goeben and
Breslau, were busily engaged in taking in supplies at Messina

6*

84 The Reformation of War

They could not escape through the Straits of Gibraltar nor through
the Suez Canal. They could either seek refuge in Pola or in the
Sea of Marmora. Of these two lines of retreat, the first was
objectless, the second full of possibilities ; consequently, Admiral
Souchon adopted the second line and sailed for the Dardanelles,
through which he steamed on August 10. In England this
astute move was derided, because the greatest naval power in
the world could only think traditionally of naval warfare. Ships
as fighting machines were understood, but as political instruments
— no' such use was beyond the traditional ken. Out of the Goeben
sprouted the Gallipoli campaign, and out of its failure the Middle
East Problem. What a move : for the West, the most decisive
since Trafalgar.

While, prior to the war, in the great armies of the world, we
find man-power obliterating tactics, so in the great navies do
we find machine-power doing exactly the same thing. Men and
more men, battleships and more battleships, but how these men
or battleships should fight or be fought, and what influence
the inventions of the last forty years would have on tactics
was not even imagined. On land, soldiers were expected to
fight much as they fought in 1870, and at sea sailors would fight
much as they fought in 1805. Such was the position in 19 14.
Well might Admiral Mahan write :

" The student will observe that changes in tactics have not only
taken place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case,
but that the interval between such changes has been unduly long.
This doubtless arises from the fact that an improvement of weapons
is due to the energy of one or two men, while changes in tactics
have to overcome the inertia of a conservative class ; but it is a
great evil. It can be remedied only by a candid recognition of each
change."

So conservative had the naval mind become that, in 1914,
it had not fully realized the greatest of all modern influences
on sea fighting — the replacement of wind by steam as a means
of fleet propulsion. The doctrine of fleet tactics, as held in July,
1914, was in brief : " parallel actions with a hope of envelop-

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 85

ment." These actions to be fought at what to-day would appear
to be ridiculously short ranges.

The moral influence of the unknown factors of modern naval
warfare — the realization of the conditions under which the
objective had to be gained ; the power of weapons the nature
of which was not fully understood, and lack of knowledge in
tactics, consequent on this ignorance, were due not so much to
inefficiency as to the fact that mechanical progress had outstepped
tactical thought and training. Time, in fact, had been insufficient
wherein to digest science, and the result was that, while the
grand tactical purpose of the opposing fleets had been based
on decisive action during peace time, directly war was declared
the unknown quantities, the resultants of science, materialized,
and the war at sea, like the war on land, assumed a deadlock,
attrition replacing the offensive as the grand tactics of the opposing
sides.

Thus we see that, when we examine the opening phases of
the Great War, traditionally educated and trained armies and
navies have but one chance of success, that is the initial operation
they undertake. Success being based on the fact that as their
opponents may also be tradition-bound, their own tradition
may triumph over that of their adversaries. Also we see that,
if the initial clash of arms does not result in victory, at once
the influence of weapons, means of movement and protection,
which have been designed since these traditions became stabilized
in blind custom and routine, exert their sway and bring traditional
warfare to an end, and out of the knowledge gained from these
weapons slowly evolves a new doctrine which replaces the old
dogma.

Throughout the Great War, we watch this struggle between
the new and the old. The old cannot imagine that its dogma
is wrong : was not it successful in 1870, and has not it been
laid down in every manual and text book since ? The new
scoffs and exaggerates ; it is carried away by its own novelty,
which gains an unnatural brilliance by being contrasted with
the opaque substance of dead thought. Wrhen we examine

86 The Reformation of War

the military history of the late Middle Ages, it astonishes us to
watch the Chivalry of France being, for the space of a century,
mown down by arrows and still not grasping the tactical value
of the bow. In years to come, some future historian may possibly
contrast, with this suicidal adherence to custom, the fact that,
though in 1904 the machine gun had proved itself to be the most
deadly of small-arm weapons, ten years later the great armies of
Europe had to learn this lesson again. In fact it would appear
that both soldier and sailor possess no power of absorbing tactical
knowledge except through personal experience. In 1899 a
British Division was equipped with twenty-four machine guns ; in
1914 it was still equipped with twenty-four : yet, in 1918, fearful
cost in life had compelled the number of automatic weapons to be
increased to over rive hundred. Accepting this number as
necessary, why was the 1914 equipment the same as that of
1899 ? The answer is, it had become a tradition that the number
of machine guns in a battalion should be two ; just as in the
fourteenth century it was a tradition that no gentleman could
fight save on horseback.

The objective in war may, as the text books declare, be the
imposition of the will of one army on the other, yet history
shows that the purpose of an army or navy has, in peace time,
little to do with war, its object being not freely to evolve but
in place to maintain its traditions. Some are vital to its existence,
others full of the germs of decay. Both are, however, holy,
and to attack either is military blasphemy. I will now turn
to the next period of the Great War — the attack by
materiel.

After a few weeks of real warfare, the offensive d outrance,
that high gospel of the pre-war manuals, was reduced to a wallow-
ing defensive among mud holes and barbed wire. Armies,
through their own lack of foresight, were reduced to the posi-
tion of human cattle. They browsed behind their fences, and on
occasion snorted and bellowed at each other. The one problem
which now confronted them was : how to re-establish movement,
for until one or both sides could move there was no possibility

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 87

of a decision by arms, and famine alone must become the arbiter
of peace. Some there were who actually recommended this
course, but their voices were drowned by shouts for shells. Shells
were to be the panacea of all difficulties, more shells and still
more shells, and then by steel a road could be blasted to Paris
or Berlin. A veritable blood and iron lust swept over the armies
of Europe.

As the entire arsenals of the civilized world could not possibly
meet the demand, the General Staffs turned to the industries
of their respective nations, and a new battle was begun. Which
nation would produce the largest output ? For on this output,
so it was thought, would victory depend. Of all great industrial
countries, Great Britain was the least well prepared for this
engagement, because the true meaning of the quick-firing gun
had not been grasped. Nevertheless, the astonishing ability
for improvisation possessed by Englishmen enabled them
so well to cope with the supply, that the General Staff literally
became intoxicated on T.N.T. We now lose sight of strategy
and tactics in a storm of shells and roaring high explosives ;
our very tympanums are rent !

For the preliminary bombardments of the battle of Hooge,
we fired 18,000 shells ; for those at the battle of the Somme,
2,000,000 shells, for those at Arras, in 1917, 2,000,000 shells,
and for those at Ypres the same year, 4,300,000 shells. At the
last-mentioned battle the tonnage of shells fired during the pre-
liminary bombardments alone amounted to 107,000 tons, the cost
of which has been estimated at £22,000,000, a figure very nearly
equal to the total yearly cost of the pre-war British Home Army.
If this enormous expenditure had resulted in victory, to the
traditional soldier it would have been cheap at the price. But
it did not result in victory, and it could not result in victory,
and for the following very simple reason. In the process of digging
up trenches by means of shell fire, everything in the neighbour-
hood of the trenches was dug up. Roads vanished, tracks
vanished, railways vanished and the surface of the ground
vanished under the influence of the material earthquake to which

88 The Reformation of War

all things were subjected. The enemy was killed, his wire
entanglements were cut to pieces and his trenches were blown
in. Yet in these very acts of destruction was an impassable
crater area formed, and, when surface water abounded, as at
Ypres, or when rain fell in torrents, as at Beaumont Hamel, none
save water-fowl could have crossed the morass of mud, and then
these birds would have done better to fly. In place of accelerating
infantry movement, every shell that fell impeded this all necessary
act of winning the war by force of arms.

There was another reason, and a more visible one still, why
this monstrous attack by shells was doomed to failure when
directed against a well-organized antagonist, namely, that
bombardments lasting from seven to twenty-one days in duration
rendered any form of surprise impossible. When a big game
hunter visits East Africa to shoot lions, he does not equip himself
with a bassoon, and then, when a lion is met with, walk round
the beast for a fortnight playing on this instrument. He does
not thus comport himself, since all idea of surprise would vanish,
and so also would the lion. Unfortunately, a staunch and de-
termined enemy does not behave like a wild animal, in place
of bolting from the bassoon, he assembles his forces opposite
the spot which is being, like Jericho, trumpeted to earth, and,
when the attack is well bogged in the slough created by gun-fire,
attacks in his turn. That our great artillery battles killed thou-
sands of Germans is undoubted, they could not help doing so,
but equally is it certain that they resulted in terrific casualties
to ourselves. The battles on the Somme, in 1916, and at Ypres,
in 1917, cost the British Army in killed, wounded and missing,
over 800,000 casualties, and as we were the attackers, the pro-
babilities are that our casualties were considerably heavier than
those of the Germans. Also is it asserted that these battles were
of assistance in beating the enemy, that they used up the enemy's
fighting forces and accelerated demoralization : but it may well
be asked — at what price ?

In my own opinion, the monopoly of strategy and tactics by
shell bludgeoning prolonged the war in place of shortening it. It

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 89

dulled the imagination of the higher command, who became
obsessed by two ideas : fill the trenches to hold them, and blow
them to pieces to capture them. Consequently, we see during
this period, which was a long one, the art of war slipping back
to the position it held in the days of the Macedonian phalanx.
As the brain power of the opposing armies grew smaller, for all
General Staffs fell victims to the shell-plague, the bodies of these
same armies grew bigger and bigger, until the administrative
organization for the supply of materiel alone absorbed such vast
numbers of men that, through shortage of man-power, the
fighting troops were nearly strangled by those whose duty it
was to administer to their needs — armies had now become
pot-bellied and pea-brained.

The completeness of the deadlock, the seemingly impossible
task of re-establishing movement in the decisive theatre of the
war, resulted, in a marked extent, in a monopolization of the
war plan by amateur political strategists. The war had either
to be won, lost, or drawn ; consequently, as the problem on the
Western Front was considered unsolvable, some other front had
to be discovered. Already, early in 1915, the Germans had
changed their main objective. Their intention was no longer
to destroy the French armies but the Russian, because of all
the armies contending the Russian army was in tactics the least
developed, for their traditionalism was very old and very obsolete,
and more hidebound than that of France. The giant said :
I have 15,000,000 men classified for mobilization ; I have as
many infantry divisions as France and Germany put together,
and of cavalry beyond number. I will " make up for deficiencies
in technique by lavish expenditure of blood ; " and before the war
was a year old the Russian casualties totalled just under
4,000,000 ! In 1917, Brusilov's armies lost no less than 375,000
men in twenty-seven days, and about 1,000,000 in four months.
All we can do is to gasp at this madness. If war, as it is so often
asserted, is a continuation of peace policy, then war is also a link
with the policy which will follow victory. During peace, man's
policy is to live and not to die ; consequently, if war be a

90 The Reformation of War

continuation of this policy, then soldiers should not be sacri-
ficed like rabbits in an Australian catch.

" The Russians," writes General Knox, " were just big-
hearted children who had thought out nothing, and had stumbled
half -asleep into a wasps' nest." In nature they were generous,
always willing to sacrifice themselves for their allies, in character
corrupt, and in disposition childlike. The leadership of their
generals was beneath contempt. Just before Tannenberg,
General Samsonov sent back for his sword, remarking " that he
was now in an enemy's country, and must go armed." His
" all prevailing idea was to try and see the battle with his own
eyes," a la Cossack. Rennenkampf was just as bad ; on one
occasion when the Germans withdrew, he said to another officer :
" You can take off your clothes now ; the Germans are retiring,"
quite failing to see that it was the very moment to attack and not
to go to bed. Cavalry charged trenches ; the Guards refused
to promote ensigns from the ranks, " as men so promoted might
remain with them after the war ! ' A minister was entitled to
draw horse hire per verst for twenty-four horses when, by rail,
he visited Vladivostock ! And when General Gulevich received
a telegram appointing him to an active command, as he at first
thought, he was much upset, for it was his custom to rest in bed
between two and five p.m. daily. But when he discovered that
the appointment was only that of Chief of the Staff of the North-
West Front he was greatly relieved, and at once gave orders for
a thanksgiving service to be held. " Few officers attended this
service, for they had all rushed off to scribble memoranda for the
General's guidance of the honours and rewards they wished to
receive."*

I have made this digression into the internal state of Russian
military traditionalism not only to show to what a parlous
state of inefficiency stagnation may bring an army, but because
it had a pronounced influence on the economic phase of the war.
Not only did the deficiencies of the Russian army demand an

* " With the Russian Armies, 1914-1917," Major-General Sir Alfred
Knox, K.C.B., C.M.G.

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 91

enormous provision of munitions, but they dragged the war
eastwards. For the Germans this change of front was com-
paratively easy ; for us and the French it would have been im-
possible had we not possessed command of the sea. Thus we
watch the military weakness of Russia acting as an incentive to
the Germans to close down their operations on the Western
Front, and, by means of their magnificent railway system, to
reopen operations in Poland. In order to follow suit, the Allies,
though knowing full well that the German forces in the West
were inferior to their own, followed up this move with an attempt
to capture Constantinople, so that, by gaining command of
the Black Sea, the Russian armies might be supplied. In truth
Russian strength did not lie in supplies, but, as in 1813, in re-
tirement. Thus we see that though these supplies may have
added to the moral of the Russian troops, by persuading them
not to retire except through force of arms, they prolonged
the war. What, I am of opinion, the Russians should have done
was what the Germans did on part of the Western Front in
February, 1917, that is retire to a Hindenburg line (not necessarily
trenches), not a line twenty miles in rear, but two hundred, three
hundred, or possibly four hundred.

In the Gallipoli campaign, the abuse of materiel was the main
cause of its failure. " In 1906 the possibilities of such an attack
had been examined by the British General Staff, and the opinion
arrived at was that an unaided action by the fleet was to be
deprecated ; and if combined operations were to be undertaken,
no landing could be effected on the Gallipoli Peninsula unless
the co-operating naval squadron could guarantee with its guns
that the landing force should reach the shore unmolested and find
after disembarkation a sufficiently extended area, free from
hostile fire, to enable it to form up for battle on suitable
ground. In summing up, the General Staff stated that they did
not consider that the co-operating fleet would be able to give
this guarantee, and they recommended such an operation should
not be attempted."*

* " Soldiers of the Prophet," Lieut.-Colonel C. C. R. Murphy, p. 121.

92 The Reformation of War

Though there was only one possible hope of such an attack
succeeding, namely, that its initiation should come as a complete
surprise, as early as November 3, 1914, the British Navy, by
shelling the forts at the entrance of the Dardanelles, first drew
the attention of the Turkish General Staff to a theatre of opera-
tions which offered decisive results. On March 5, 1915, a
further bombardment took place, and on April 25, the first
landing was attempted.

In these operations the mistake made by the navy was identi-
cal with the mistake which governed the operations of the army
during this period in the evolution of the war. Surprise — the
moral attack, was replaced by bombardment — the materiel
attack ; cunning was ousted by steel, and the attack once again
failed.

When considering the phases into which I have divided the
war, it must not be supposed that any hard or fast dividing line
can be drawn between them. To me they are comparable to a
geological chart. The periods — tertiaty, quaternary, etc., are
shown by well defined bands of colour containing within each
drawings of the types of animals, plants and minerals more
especially belonging to each epoch. In fact there are no dividing
lines, no fixed beginnings or endings, only a slow steady pro-
gression. Similarly with the phases of the Great War, which I
am now examining : one period emerges from another, takes form,
and then falls under the spell of some virile idea which the tests
and trials of the war have proved sound. W7e see this clearly in
the increasing employment of the most powerful of the older
weapons — quick-firing guns and machine guns ; then of the newer
weapons — aeroplanes and submarines, and lastly of altogether
new weapons — gas and tanks.

As traditional warfare merges into the war of materiel, every
possible effort is made to enhance gun-power by air-power, in the
form of fire-control and direction from the air, and yet, as I will
show later on, this was not the main duty of the aeroplane. So
also with the submarine ; at first she was considered as a minor
adjunct of a fleet ; nevertheless, as the war proved, her main

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 93

power lay in her ability to dispense with fleet protection and to
become the sniper of the seas.

As traditional warfare could find no solution to the problem
of re-establishing mobility once battle fronts had become en-
trenched, and as soldiers, for the most part, could only think of
war in traditional terms, the solution to this problem had, in the
main, to be sought outside normal military thought, and the only
place to seek it was among the civil sciences. Being a great
chemical country, Germany turned to gas, and being a great en-
gineering country, we, in Great Britain, turned to the petrol engine
and produced the tank. The actual date when these two new
means of war were first thought of does not much matter, for the
ideas underlying them are very old, but a study of modern war-
fare in general and of modern industry in particular would have
given the General Staffs of Europe a clearer idea of the probable
nature of the next war than the one held by them in 1914. Un-
shackled by the traditional aspect of warfare, it was for this
reason that Mr. Bloch, a pacifist, was able to visualize the
nature of the next war more clearly than the most eminent
of General Staff Officers. If it had only been appreciated
that, failing an overwhelming initial success, such as a second
Sadowa or Sedan, the next war would be a war of trenches,
then it would have logically followed that not only would
enormous quantities of ammunition be required, but to
maintain mobility under the tornado resulting, armour would
have to be reintroduced.

The last of the great siege wars was the war in the Crimea,
and though this war had been studied by soldiers it had been little
understood. Had it been carefully examined, it would have been
realized that the conditions of 19 15 were very similar to those of
1854, and that the difficulties of 1915 could be overcome by the
solutions suggested to meet those which confronted the British
Army in 1854.

In 1854, we And Mr. James Cowen, a philanthropist, sug-
gesting to the British Government the adoption of a " locomotive
land battery fitted with scythes to mow down infantry " : in

94 The Reformation of War

other words the tank. The same year, Lord Dundonald, a noted
admiral, suggested that gas could be usefully employed in order
to asphyxiate the garrison of Sebastopol. Neither of these sug-
gestions was adopted, because they did not harmonize with the
traditional methods of waging war. They were considered too
terrible to be contemplated. Curious to relate, however, the
government which showed such qualms as regards killing the
enemy showed none as regards inflicting a miserable death on
thousands of our own men through their gross neglect of ad-
ministrative arrangements and hospital necessities. The reason
for this was that death by typhus, dysentery and neglected wounds
did not violate tradition, while death by gassing or mowing down
would have. In the Crimean war, tradition won through, and at
what suffering and cost !

In the Great War, tradition once again formed phalanx
against all innovation and improvement ; luckily for us, it went
down before the hammer-blows of science, but unfortunately,
though expectedly, immediately the Armistice had been signed,
tradition rose like a phoenix from its ashes.

For a generation to come, tradition will fight against the new
doctrines of warfare. These will ultimately win through, as they
must, and, in the internecine struggle between 1914 and 1918
organizations, will once again the next war be forgotten. Our
only chance to escape this calamity is to change our outlook on
history ; in place of solidifying reason, history should liquefy the
imagination. History never actually repeats itself, for it con-
stitutes one continuous transformation. Its tendencies may be
ascertained by study, but foresight into these demands more than
study : it demands meditation and a continuous use of the word
" why ? "

I will now examine the next great period, that of the economic
attack.

The enormous demands made for all types of munitions of war
and warlike supplies during the phase of the materiel attack,
brought into a clear light those economic foundations of the war
which, in peace time, had lain too deep to be noticed much by

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 95

soldiers. First, these munitions had to be supplied ; secondly,
their supply curtailed the manufacture of luxuries as well as many
everyday necessities. So visible did these economic foundations
become, that it was not long before the General Staffs of the con-
tending nations realized that, if the food supply of the enemy
could be cut off, the will of the hostile civil population would be
undermined, and with this loss of will to endure, their military
forces would be rendered useless.

The first military problem of the Allies now became that of the
circumvallation of the Central Powers ; their second problem,
their surrender by starvation. Consequently, during the th'rd
phase of the war, the problem of re-establishing tactical mobility
was to a certain extent replaced by a direct attack on the enemy's
stomach. The nature of this type of war is simple, yet, through-
out history, it has been persistently misunderstood.

Starvation is a means towards an end and not the end itself,
and I will repeat it again : the end, objective or goal in warfare is
the imposition of the policy of one hostile government on another,
the foundations of these respective policies being the wills of the
contending nations. These wills must, however, be attacked in
such a manner that their possessors are not permanently injured ;
for to weaken the enemy, either permanently or for a long period
after the cessation of hostilities, is, as I have already pointed out,
tantamount to wounding one's own body by a self-inflicted blow.
Such a blow is immoral, not because it compels an enemy to
accept a policy which is distasteful to him, but because, by re-
ducing the physique of the enemy and especially of the enemy's
children, it ultimately not only reduces his prosperity but the
prosperity of the world — it is in fact a blow directed against
civilization.

The encirclement of the Central Powers by the Allies resulted
in the most gigantic siege in history, the lines of circumvallation
running from Calais to Kermanshah, and thence through Russia
to the Baltic. The establishment of this immense circle of
bayonets took time, but what took longer still was the time taken
by the British Government to realize that, once this siege had

96 The Reformation of War

been determined on, the lines of circumvallation were useless as
long as supplies could be shipped in vast quantities to neutral
countries and thence transported to Germany. The problem of
starvation was virtually a politico-naval one, and the politician
was afraid of enforcing it, not because it was immoral, but be-
cause it might prove detrimental to the pockets of neutrals who,
like vampires, were feasting on the blood of the battlefields.
Such neutrality as this is beneath contempt, and during the
war its immorality was only exceeded by the vice of political
fear.

The bottling up of the German fleet immediately after the
declaration of war drew the attention of the German Government
to the necessity of economy in resources, especially of all food
stocks. In December, 1914, Professor Eltzbacher produced a book
on this subject entitled : " Die deutsche Volksernahrung und der
englische Aushungerungsplan,"* which dealt with this question
in minute detail down to the tonnage of dog's flesh. Outside
scientific circles, however, little attention was paid to this question
in England, as may be gathered from Professor Poulton's
" Romanes Lecture " for 1915. In this lecture he says :

" Lord Robert Robert Cecil is reported in The Times of December
3rd (1915) to have said, ' Our policy was to secure our rights and to
starve Germany first of all. Starving Germany was, of course,
only a metaphorical expression — it was impossible ; he would
rather say deprive her of essential articles.' What right had Lord
Robert to say that the starving of Germany was impossible ? He
is not an expert on food supply, and he quoted no authority. Has
he studied the Eltzbacher memoirs and Dr. Waller's and Professor
Ashley's criticisms ? Has he asked for a report from the Royal
Society's Committee on the food supply of Germany ? What we
really need to end this war is knowledge and firm action based on it.
As it is, with the slipshod ways of conducting war and neglect of
scientific authority, our own Government has done very much to
help Germany out of the difficulty. It has ignored, as Dr. Waller
says in the introduction to the English translation, ' the obvious
fact that the food of a besieged nation, as of a besieged fortress, in

* English edition 1915, " Germany's Food and England's Plan to starve
Her out."

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 97

tons of bread, meat and potatoes is as truly its ammunition as are
its shells.' "*

From the above we see that while the War Office and the Ad-
miralty were exerting all their strength to encircle and so be-
siege the Central Powers, the Board of Trade was forcibly feeding
these Powers through the Dutch spout. Neutral countries may
possess certain rights during war time, but to allow them to
supply the enemy with food when he is being besieged is to turn
even traditional warfare upside-down.

When, however, the blockade began to tighten, Germany had
no intention of committing felo-de-se in order to maintain a naval
custom or a humanitarian tradition. She was now fighting for
her life, and not being able to hit above the belt she hit below it
in order to make good by cunning her physical naval deficit^
She was, consequently, outlawed. Though the infringement of
international rules and customs is always dangerous, as it enables
an adversary to call the kettle black, Germany, in my opinion, in
the circumstances in which the blockade placed her, was justified
in her turn in attempting to establish a blockade of her enemies'
coast -lines by the unrestricted use of the submarine. If this action
was an infringement of international law and the (fictitious) rights
of neutrals, then those neutral countries which were affected
should have supported their rights by declaring war on the law-
breaker. In place, most of these weedlings howled with injured
innocence and continued to make money out of the battlefields
they were too prudent or too cowardly to approach. There can
be no doubt that, by instituting unrestricted submarine warfare,
the Germans violated certain laws of war made long before the
advent of this weapon ; but also can there be no doubt that, if
the slow starvation of German men, women and children by
means of investment did not contravene the spirit of international

* " Science and the Great War," E. B. Poulton, D.Sc, M.A., pp 31-32.
In December, 19 13, Holland imported i\ million tons of cocoa ; in December,
1914, imports in cocoa rose to 7$ million tons. On account of the abnormal
tonnage of oranges sent to Germany " on the Empress's birthday every German
soldier was presented with a pot of marmalade ! "

7

98 The Reformation of War

law, then neither did unrestricted submarine warfare contravene
it, though it may have infringed the letter of the tradition which
this law had created. If starvation is right in one case it is right
in both. The drowning of non-combatants is but an incident in
the operation of killing by starvation, it does not affect the
principle underlying this act. Further, it should be realized
that, as long as international law is so worded as to permit of
neutrals trading like ghouls on the blood of the belligerents,
international law is immoral and, consequently, it is a virtuous
act to destroy it. To foster it is not only to place a premium on
greed and cowardice but also on moral prostitution.

During the period of the economic attack, the whole question
of the security of property on the high seas was thrown into the
limelight. This question is an old one, and a very brief summary
of its history is instructive.

Up to the middle of the fourteenth century, capture at sea

was practically unrestricted. Then we find several of the leading

European nations binding themselves by an agreement known

as the " Consolat-del-Mar," in which it was laid down that only

enemy property, either ships or cargo, was liable to capture and

that neutral ships and cargo were not. During the Crimean

War, both Great Britain and France agreed not to capture

enemy's goods in neutral ships or neutral goods in enemy ships.

In 1856, Great Britain became party to the Declaration of Paris,

and hung a millstone round her neck by agreeing to exempt

from capture enemy's goods in neutral ships and neutral goods

in enemy ships, subject to the exception of contrabands. In

187 1 Lord Salisbury said : " Since the Declaration of Paris

the fleet, valuable as it is for preventing an invasion of these

shores, is almost valueless for any other purpose," and shortly

before the outbreak of war, in 19 14, Major J. A. Longridge wrote :

" The Declaration of Paris curtails the offensive power of the only
weapon with which, in the absence of an army of continental pro-
portions, she (i.e. Great Britain) can make good her word when she
speaks with her enemies in the gate."*

* " The Liability of Forfeiture of National Oversea Commerce," Major
J. A. Longridge. " The Army Review," Vol. VI., April, 1914.

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 99

If sufficient harm had not already been accomplished by
depriving the fleet of an economic objective, shortly before the
war, the British Government contemplated a further restriction
of her naval powers by considering very favourably the terms
of the Declaration of London ; fortunately for the Empire this
Declaration was still unratified when hostilities began.

From the opening of the war onwards, few opportunities of
a surreptitious nature were missed by Great Britain to file through
the shackles of the Declaration of Paris, and when we view these
attempts from an impartial point of view, there can be little
doubt that, technically at least, Germany was right in stating
that we had violated the terms of this Declaration, and that,
consequently, she in her turn was free to torpedo ships at sight.
Here, again, can we learn another lesson concerning the dangers
of rules based on pseudo-humanitarian vapourings. The Declara-
tion of Paris was a pacifical measure adopted to restrict the horrors
of war ; it was not based on common-sense or human nature, and
what happened was pre-ordained. Having agreed to it in peace
time, Great Britain tried to wriggle out of it in war time, with the
inevitable result that Germany made these wriggles an excuse
to institute a form of warfare which was, from the standpoint
of the signatories of the Declaration, more barbarous than any
type of warfare yet contemplated.

In the German economic campaign, one cardinal military
error was made — it was declared too early. Had the Germans
delayed their declaration until the end of 1917, and then launched
an unrestricted submarine war backed by two hundred to three
hundred of these vessels, they would have forced their will on
Great Britain before the middle of the following year, and America
would have been left completely out of the picture. In fact,
like ourselves in the Gallipoli campaign, if they had not prema-
turely shown their naval claws, they might, in spite of the stale-
mate on land, have ended the war victoriously by the use of sea
power. To-day, if we close our eyes to this fact and attempt
to banish the submarine by incantations on the lines of the
Declarations of Paris or London, we may, at some day in the

7*

ioo The Reformation of War

future, suddenly open them to find starvation staring us in the
face.

If we examine the basic ideas underlying this whole period of
righting, we shall find, as was the case in all former wars, that
killing was the supreme object. Soldiers have killed soldiers
since times immemorial ; consequently, killing, which is but a
means of enforcing the will of one nation on another, has mono-
polized the whole horizon of warfare. The submarine taught
the civilized nations of the world that there were other means
of compelling a nation to accept the will of its adversary, and,
though its use resulted in men and even women and children
being killed, the numbers destroyed were insignificant when
compared to the numbers killed by traditional methods. Thus,
we come to the conclusion that it was not the killing of non-
combatants which was the real crime, for in modern warfare
it is pure sophistry to attempt to draw a line between those who
fight and those who assist the fighters, since entire nations go to
war. Instead, that it was the novelty of the means, in spite
of their low killing power, which horrified those who were attacked ;
for, not having grown accustomed to these means, they were not
prepared to defend themselves against them.

Nearly all new methods of waging war have, in the past,
humanized the art. Thus, the most brutal form of warfare is
axe warfare, the hand-to-hand struggle which ends in the ex-
termination of one side. Musket warfare humanized axe warfare,
and, in the last great war, the submarine, aeroplane, gas and tank
humanized that condition of warfare which, by 1914, had grown
into a traditional art.

A novel weapon or means of warfare, like an unknown plague,
fills the imagination of man with horror and intangible fear.
Yet, no remedy to this is to be obtained by locking up terror
in a mental dungeon ; in place, the unknown must be examined
in broad daylight, its nature diagnosed and its antidote discovered.

The underlying factor throughout the whole of this period
of the economic attack was that, as the fighting forces are main-
tained by the country to which they belong, they can, under

The Last Lap of the Physical Epoch 101

modern conditions, be attacked indirectly by the delivery of
direct attack on the nation itself. Siege warfare nearly always
demands a costly process of attrition, and never more so than
when an entire nation has to be besieged and starved into sub-
mission. In the next Chapter I will show that, towards the end
of the Great War, a more economical method of attack was
taking form, a method which in the future may compel an entire
nation to throw up its hands and crave peace within a few days,
possibly hours, of a war being declared.

V

THE FIRST LAP OF THE MORAL EPOCH

IN the last Chapter I examined the traditional aspect of
the Great War and the main phases which out-cropped
from it. I pointed out, as far as space would allow, that the
theory underlying the war was that of enforcing policy by de-
struction of life and of property. The question may now be asked,
if this theory is fundamentally unsound, how comes it that it has
prevailed since times immemorable ? The answer is not difficult
to arrive at, when it is realized that national wars, in their modern
aspect, are but correlatives of modern civilization, which, since
the introduction of steam-power, especially in the form of the
steamship and locomotive, has been completely revolutionized.
With the adoption of steam as a motive force, we see simul-
taneously introduced a physical world contraction and an in-
tellectual world expansion. While, in 1750, it took three weeks
to travel from Caithness to London, to-day Bombay, Cape Town,
San Francisco and Vladivostock can be reached in a similar
time. Intellectually, what did this mean ? It meant that, as
space shrank, intelligence expanded through travel and rapidity
of communication. In 1759, the news of the capture of Quebec
took several weeks before it was received in London ; yet, in
192 1, the result of the Carpentier-Dempsey fight was announced
to the whole of Paris within three minutes of the knock-out blow
being delivered !

This intellectual and moral revolution, which was brought
about through a growth in the physical sciences, was not grasped
by the military mind. It was not realized that, while only a

102

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 103

hundred years ago, it took days and weeks and months before
a moral blow could be delivered, to-day it only takes minutes
and hours. It was not realized that, while in the year 1800,
the nervous system of a civilized nation was of a low and gang-
lionic order, by 1900 it had become highly sensitive and central-
ized. It was not realized that, as the whole aspect of civilization
had changed, so also must the whole aspect of warfare be changed,
and, as science had accomplished the civil changes, so also must
science accomplish the military ones.

In 19 14, what happened was this : unless the war could be
won within a few weeks of its outbreak, armies, as then organized,
could not, under probable circumstances, maintain or enforce
the peace policies of their respective governments, because these
armies, in constitution, belonged to a social epoch which was dead
and gone. For over a hundred years civilization had been built
upon science and steam-power, yet, in 1914, armies were still
organized on muscle-power, the power upon which nations had
been constituted prior to the advent of the steam-engine, the
dynamo and the petrol-engine, the telegraph and the telephone.
As the main target in war — the will of the nation — grew in size
through intellectual expansion and sensitiveness, so do we see,
in order to protect these targets, armies becoming, not more
intelligent and more scientific, but more brutal, ton upon ton of
human flesh being added, until war strengths are reckoned in
millions in place of thousands of men.

This idea of human tonnage was a veritable hallucination,
which became apparent when, in August, 1914, the first machine
gun sent its bullets zip-zipping over the battlefield. This
hallucination, thereupon, began to volatilize, for the soldier,
however well he may have been trained, always remains a creature
controlled by his instinct of self-preservation. What did this
instinct do ? For the next four years, at first unconsciously,
then more and more consciously, it urged the soldier to make good
his hundred years of scientific neglect. Invention was thereupon
piled upon invention, but the killing theory still held the field,
until towards the close of the war it became apparent to some

104 The Reformation of War

that science was so powerful that it could even dispense with
the age-old custom of killing and could do something far more
effective — it could petrify the human mind with fear. It could,
in fact, directly dictate the will of one nation to another, and with
vastly reduced bloodshed. It could, in fact, enforce policy with
far less detriment to the eventual peace than had ever been
possible before. The idea of the moral shock, in place of the
physical assault, was just beginning to flutter over the blood-
soaked battlefields when the Armistice of November n, 1918,
brought hostilities to a close. Since that date this idea has
been reduced from a dynamic force to a mere kinetic energy, by
solemn international ignorance of the meaning and object of war.
In 1921, at Washington, the aim of the Disarmament Conference
was to restrict the outbreak of war and to render warfare less
brutal, yet the action taken there, as I shall prove, was to render
wars more likely and to maintain armies on a footing which,
when the next great war engulfs society, will once again demand
its million tons of flesh. I will now return to the war of 1914-
1918.

If we examine the history of siege warfare, we shall soon
discover that the causes of surrender, in order of importance,
have been : treachery, starvation and assault. Here we obtain
three different means of accomplishing a siege — the attack on the
moral of the defenders, the attack on the resources of the
defenders and the attack on the defences of the defenders. I
have already dealt with the second and third of these means, I
will now examine the first.

I will first inquire into the meaning of treachery as applied
to war, for it is an ugly word* and its unenviable reputation may,
in the minds of some, obliterate its tremendous power. Treachery
is a violation of allegiance, the highest form of which is the
co-operation of the individuals composing a nation in the main-
tenance of the nation's free existence. For an individual, who
shares in common with others the prosperity of the nation to which

* An American writer defines strategy as follows : " When practised by
Indians it is called treachery " — which is very true.

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 105

he belongs, to refuse, for some selfish reason, to secure the nation
against the aggression of an enemy, is an act of treachery. All
acts of war ultimately aim at creating a state of treachery in
an enemy ; in other words, their object is to reduce the enemy's
moral to so low a point that he is willing to set aside his national
existence or policy, and accept the will of his adversary.
Treachery, in its military meaning, is demoralization, and, if we
once get the nasty taste of the word out of our mouths, we shall
realize that, if by inducing a state of faithlessness or demoralization
in an enemy we can more speedily win a war than by force of
arms or starvation, we have every right to use treachery as a
weapon. By this I do not mean that we should behave like
barbarians, or that we should fire at an enemy under a flag of
truce, or promise him terms of surrender we have no intention
of carrying out ; but that to attack the will of the enemy's army
and his civil population by a rapid means is quite as honourable
an act of war as to attack it by a slow means, such as shooting
down his soldiers, sinking his ships and starving his women and
children.

I will now examine this question from a very simple stand-
point. In a besieged town or fortress, what human elements
within it have, in the past, proved the most receptive to
treachery ? Undoubtedly the civil elements. The reason for
this is self-apparent ; soldiers are controlled by discipline,
civilians by fear. Consequently, the main targets of the moral
attack are the civil inhabitants of the country attacked, for
if their will can be corrupted, however well disciplined may
their soldiers and sailors be, their organization will become
affected by the general rot which has undermined the stability
of their government. A nation septic with revolution can
no more wage an organized war than can a man, contorted
with colic, shoot snipe. This was the lesson which Russia
taught Europe in 1917, and yet, at that time, the Allied press
was unanimous in pronouncing the revolution to be a glorious
war-winning event !

On the declaration of war, in August, 1914, the moral attack

106 The Reformation of War

opened like a labour conference ; the contending newspapers
collected dirt from the gutters of their respective Fleet Streets
and threw it into each other's faces. Later on in the war, the
journalists were drilled into some form of order, and well-
organized paper attacks were launched, treachery finding its
extreme limit in the fictitious and comic discovery of the Ger-
man Corpse Factories. Curious to relate that, though the
power of the press, as a means of demoralization, was fully
realized by the British Government, its enormous power to
moralize the British Nation was never made use of. Being
completely cut off from the realities of war by a short-sighted
censorship, the press was never able to bring the people into
touch with these realities and, consequently, into contact with
their true responsibilities. The people being thus rendered
inarticulate, the government was unable to ascertain the popular
sentiment on any great question, and when a crisis had to be
faced, not knowing how the nation might take it, decision was
obscured by ambiguous action, which always permitted of
numerous lines of retirement should eventually the people
object. What the politicians never realized was that, during
war time, the supreme duty of government is to take the nation
into their full confidence ; for, when national existence is at
stake, popular opinion (intuition) is nearly always healthy and
virile. The medium between the government and the people,
and between the people and the nation's army, fleet, and air
force, is the daily press ; during the war, this medium, in place of
being rendered fluid, was solidified by the chill blast of political
fear.

Besides the newspaper-attack, the propitiation of neutrals
was extensively made use of as a means of undermining the
moral of the enemy's government. Looking back on the results,
it is very doubtful whether this diplomatic attack did more
damage to the enemy or to ourselves. The reason was that
the government relied more on cajolery than on outspokenness.
British diplomatic action in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, during
19 14, was a grotesque failure, and there can be little doubt that,

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 107

during the period which preceded America's entry into the war,
the government was quite as concerned with pleasing the United
States as with beating Germany. In place of winning over the
Americans — a virile nation — by frankness, this action, though
it may have flattered President Wilson, withheld from the
people of that great country the seriousness of the Allies' position
in Europe. This want of straight talking undoubtedly lengthened
the war. What no government appeared to realize, and Germany
least of all, was that the poles of the magnet which attract
all neutrals worth attracting are straight-fighting and straight-
speaking, and why ? Because the winners of the war will, in
the peace which must one day follow it, exert more control over
neutrals than the losers ; consequently, it was to the future
advantage of the world that the " cleanest ': nations should
win.

Besides the purely civil means of attacking the moral of
a nation I will now turn to the military means. In traditional
warfare, it was the rule that armies attacked armies and not
non-combatants. If this tradition were strictly adhered to,
then the demoralization of the enemy could only be effected
by the destruction of the enemy's army and fleet. This process
proved a most bloody one, and, during the war, adherence to
it resulted in appalling slaughter. It should here be once again
remembered that the more bloodless a war is, the more prosperous
and contented will the peace, which follows the war, be for all
concerned. For example, if, during the recent war, Germany
could have been forced to disband her army and scrap her
navy by a sudden and enormous loss of national moral, which
entailed little bloodshed and small damage to her industries,
would not the world to-day be a more prosperous and contented
habitation for man than it actually is ? There can be no two
answers to this question. And, supposing even if this sudden
blow had cost the lives of a few thousand German women and
children, would this loss have rendered this novel type of war-
fare immoral ? Certainly, if the killing of men is to be considered
moral while the killing of women and children, under all

108 The Reformation of War

circumstances, is an immoral act. The colossal fallacy of this
argument is to be sought in the fact that traditional warfare
will persistently and blindly think of killing or not-killing as
objectives in war. When, however, it is realized that to enforce
a policy, and not to kill, is the objective, and that the policy
of a nation, though maintained and enforced by her sailors
and soldiers, is not fashioned by them, but by the civil popula-
tion, surely, then, if a few civilians get killed in the struggle they
have nothing to complain of — " dulce et decorum est pro patria
mori." And, if they will not accept these words as their motto,
then, in my opinion, their governments should altogether abstain
from war, however much they may be spat upon.

Morality is not a fixed quantity, it is not a law of Nature,
but a dynamic and invigorating social force. It, again, is not
an end in itself, but a means towards an end — peaceful national
survival. Slaughter is the negation of survival ; consequently,
as the incidence of slaughter is reduced, the more moral, in the
natural meaning of the word, does warfare become.

I will now examine certain means of warfare which were
used during the Great War, the future developments of which,
I believe, will, while minimizing bloodshed and ruin, prove
adequate in order to enforce policy.

Nearly all new inventions in war, and not a few in industry,
have been attributed to his Satanic Majesty, who must, indeed,
be the greatest of all inventors, but, curious to relate, eventually
all these inventions have made warfare more and more humane
and less and less frequent. If this progress continue, it is quite
conceivable that from the week-end wars of the Middle Ages,
we may, in the future, expect wars once a century, once every
two centuries, until warfare, as we know it to-day, is looked
upon as a kind of international cannibalism and nations lose
their taste for blood.

When warfare was very simple in nature, the soldier shot
arrows at his antagonist ; later on he fired cannon balls, and as
these played terrible havoc when they bounded through close
masses of troops, consequently the infantry opened their ranks

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 109

in order to avoid destruction. This rather disconcerted the
gunner, so he invented the shell and the shrapnel howitzer,
and, when the opposing infantry found out, as they did very
early in the Great War, that it was useless to open the ranks any
further, they dug trenches and went to earth. Once again was
the gunner disconcerted, and, while he was attempting to dig
the infantry out of their trenches by means of shells, a very
expensive operation, a cunning German, following on the lines
proposed by Lord Dundonald in 1854, replaced steel particles
by gas particles, so that a whole area and all the targets included
in it, either above ground or beneath, might be hit.

On April 22, 1915, the Germans put this idea into practice
east of Ypres, and inaugurated a mode of warfare which I believe
is destined to revolutionize the whole art. They made, however,
two cardinal mistakes : first, they used lethal gas — chlorine,
which was totally unnecessary, especially so as the Hague
Convention did not forbid the use of gases of a non-toxic nature ;
secondly, they did not use sufficient of it for the winning of a
decisive battle. Had they really understood the meaning of
gas they could have won the war.

The effects, though restricted, were immediate and appalling,
the French and British troops fell back gasping for breath.
They could do nothing else, for all their peace training and
equipment were useless against this new death. Consequently,
tradition was shocked to the marrow, and, without thought, the
whole civilized world shuddered with horror, and gas, like
gunpowder, chloroform and the locomotive, was pronounced to
be the invention of the Devil.

The horrors of gas warfare have been so well advertised
that the very enthusiasm shown by its execrators should make
us pause and think. What are the facts ? The main fact, as
regards the brutality of this type of warfare, is to be discovered
in the casualty lists. As regards their own losses, the American
General Staff have carefully categorized them ; they are as
follows :

The total number of casualties resulting from all causes

no The Reformation of War

was 274,217. Of these 74,779, or 27.3 per cent., were due to
gas. Of the gas casualties only 1,400, or 1.87 per cent., resulted
in death. Of the remaining 199,438 casualties, resulting from
bullets, shell fire, etc., 46,659, or 23.4 per cent., proved fatal.
Here, then, are the facts regarding these alleged horrors. Well
may the compilers of this report conclude it by saying :

" In other words, gas is twelve times as humane as bullets and
high explosives. That is to say, if a man gets gassed on the
battlefield he has twelve times as many chances to get well as if
he is struck by bullets and high explosives. u

Further than this, the permanent injuries resulting from
gas-wounding are far less numerous than those inflicted by the
use of traditional weapons. At the Meeting of the British
Association of 1919, Brigadier-General H. Hartley, an expert
chemist, said :

" The death-rate among gas casualties was much lower than that
among casualties of other causes, and not only was the death-rate
lower, but a much smaller proportion of the injured suffered any
permanent disability. There is no comparison between the per-
manent damage caused by gas, and the suffering caused to those
who were maimed and blinded by shell and rifle-fire.* It is now
generally admitted that in the later stages of the war many military
objects could be attained with less suffering by using gas than by any
other means."

I have already stated, more than once, that killing is not
the objective in war. If this statement be accepted, then, as

* Pacifists and adherents of the traditional war school have deliberately
attempted to discredit chemical warfare by stating that gas has blinded
thousands of men and affected tens of thousands with tuberculosis. The facts
of the case are as follows :

(i.) Blinding. During the war the Americans had eighty-six men totally
blinded, forty-four partially blinded and six hundred and forty-four
blinded in one eye. Of the gassed patients four were blinded in both
eyes and twenty-five in one eye.

(ii.) In the year 1918 there were one and a half times as many cases of
tuberculosis per thousand among all American troops in France as there
were amongst those gassed. In 1919 there were more than one and
three-quarter times as many tuberculosis cases per thousand among
all troops as there were among the gassed.

The Report of the Surgeon-General U.S.A. Army, 1920.

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch ill

bloodshed is uneconomical, surely an attempt should be made
to devise a means of forcing an enemy to change his policy by
bloodlessly defeating his army. Gas warfare enables us to do
this, for there is no reason why gases as weapons should be of
a lethal nature. In the last war they were frequently so, because
soldiers and the civil suppliers of soldiers had become so
accustomed to think in terms of killing, that, when gas was pro-
posed as a weapon, they at once looked upon gas in the form
of a microscopic bullet.

On July 12, 1917, at the third battle of Ypres, the Germans
gave up this idea, and, by making use of a chemical commonly
known as mustard gas, disclosed to the whole world the future
possibilities of gas warfare. Respirators to a great extent
were now useless, for the persistent and vesicant nature of this
chemical rendered whole areas, for days on end, uninhabitable
and dangerous to cross. Men carried the oily liquid on their
clothes, on the mud of their boots, and infected dug-outs, billets
and rest camps far back on the lines of communication. Few
died, but many were incapacitated for months on end. Here,
curious to relate, is the true power of gas as a weapon — it can
incapacitate without killing. A dead man says nothing, and,
when once buried, is no encumbrance to the survivors. A
wounded man will spread the wildest of rumours, will exaggerate
dangers, foster panic, and requires the attention of others to
heal him — until he dies or is cured, he is a military encumbrance
and a demoralizing a.gent. Gas, as I will show later on, is,
par excellence, the weapon of demoralization, and, as it can
terrorize without necessarily killing, it, more than any other
known weapon, can enforce economically the policy of one
nation on another. I will now turn to air warfare.

For military purposes the aeroplane had been made use of
before the advent of the Great War, both in Mexico and Tripoli,
but it was only during the Great War that, in spite of tradi-
tional jealousy, its immense powers became manifest. At
first a mere adjunct to the older services on land and sea, within
three years it won its independence, for not only could it hop

112 The Reformation of War

over armies and fleets and attack the brains of these forces,
but it could attack the moral of the government defended by
these forces, and, above all, the will of the nation upon which
the power of government is founded.

The Germans were, I believe, the first of the belligerents to
bombard an open town from the air, and such action, being a
novelty, met with universal execration. Nevertheless, it was not
long before the Allies retaliated in what was known as baby-
killing, but which in truth was the direct attack on the source of
all military power — the nerves and will of the civil population.

As it cannot be more immoral to bomb a town than to bom-
bard it, does the immorality of an aeroplane attack lie in the
fact that, while in a bombardment the slaughter of women and
children is but an unfortunate incident, in an aerial attack on a
town the terrorization of its civil inhabitants becomes the main
object ? I believe that this is the popular conception, simply
because civilians have not yet grasped the fact that : when
nations go to war the entire population of each country concerned is
ranged against the other, and that the solidarity of their fighting
forces is founded on the civil will. The justifiableness of such
attacks was clearly pointed out by Mr. Lanchester as long ago as
1 91 5, when he wrote :

"It is futile to attempt to disguise the self-evident fact that a
serious attack on the capital city of an enemy, containing in its heart
the administrative centre both of his Army and Navy, in addition
to the headquarters of his Government, cannot be regarded other
than as a legitimate act of war. No international agreement or
contention can make it otherwise. . . . There is really no escape
from this. Unquestionably the destruction of a capital city, such as
London, with the administrative centres aforesaid, would be a military
achievement of the first order of magnitude ; it would be, from an
enemy standpoint, an achievement of far greater potential value
than any ordinary success or victory on the field of battle."*

Apparent as this fact is, it was only towards the end of the
Great War that the various belligerents began to realize what an
attack on the social nerve-centres really meant. Simultaneously,

* " Aircraft and Warfare," F. W. Lanchester, p. 192.

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 113

they also learnt that the body of an army attacked by low flying
aeroplanes was all but helpless. In Palestine and Syria the routed
Turks suffered seriously from this form of attack, so also did the
retiring Austrians in Italy. Of the last-mentioned operations,
Major-General the Hon. S. F. Gathorne-Hardy gives a graphic
description in Vol. III., No. i, of the " Army Quarterly." He says :

" On these two days (October 29th, 30th, 1918), the Conegliano-
Pordonone road was black with columns of all arms hurrying east-
wards. On these the few British squadrons poured 30,000 rounds
of S.A.A. and three and a half tons of bombs from low altitude.
Subsequent examination of the road almost forced the observer to
the conclusion that this form of warfare should be forbidden in the
future."

Such advice as this is worse than useless, for difficulties are
not banished by words, and, if such action were possible, either
mankind would become a race of gods or all progress would cease.
Curious to relate, a very similar suggestion was made by Baron
de Jomini, who wrote his " Art of War " about one hundred
years ago. He says :

" The means of destruction are approaching perfection with
frightful rapidity. The Congreve rockets, the effect and direction
of which it is said the Austrians can now regulate. The shrapnel
howitzers, which throw a stream of canister as far as the range of
a bullet — the Perkins steam guns, which vomit forth as many balls
as a battalion — will multiply the chances of destruction, as though
the hecatombs of Eylau, Borodino, Leipsic and Waterloo were not
sufficient to decimate the European races.

" If governments do not combine in a congress to proscribe these
inventions of destruction, there will be no course left but to make
the half of any army consist of cavalry with cuirasses, in order to
capture with great rapidity these machines ; and the infantry, even,
will be obliged to resume its armour of the Middle Ages, without
which a battalion will be destroyed before engaging the enemy.

' We may then see again the famous men-at-arms all covered
with armour, and horses will require the same protection."

His prevision was right, comity of nations could do nothing ;
common-sense could do much, and his armoured man materia-
lized in 1916 in the form of the tank, yet another invention
which I will now examine.

8

114 The Reformation of War

For many years before the outbreak of the Great War the line
along which tactical power was sought was fire, more fire and yet
more fire. Protection, except by fire and by extensions, that is
by reduction in the size of the target, had been neglected, and in-
creased means of mobility, except for the railway, had scarcely
been considered at all. In 1914 (and for all that still to-day), the
marching-power of the soldier was about the same as it was in the
days of Cheops and Sennacherib.

As the type of fire aimed at was rifle-fire, and as it was well
known that a rifle bullet could be rendered perfectly harmless by
about 8 mm. of armour, it is truly astonishing, when to-day
we look back on the problem, that, before the outbreak of the war,
no single soldier of note thought of using the petrol engine and
chain track for the purpose of carrying armour in order to protect
infantry. The problem is in nature so simple and so self-apparent,
that the only answer to the question why then was it not thought
of, must be that a tradition, when it becomes fixed in the mind of
man, exercises a hypnotic influence over even the most intelligent,
and over the less intelligent it is mentally a soporific drug and the
most dangerous " dope " of all. So we find that, since 1870, the
entire General Staffs in the world had been walking in their sleep.
Then suddenly, in August, 1914, they woke up to discover that they
were standing outside on the window-sill of a house forty-four
stories high — the house of traditional warfare. Fire-supremacy,
the very instrument of victory which, for forty-four years, they
had been creating, drove friend and foe like rats to earth. Then
a common-sense man — Colonel E. D. Swinton — came forward and
suggested the tank, and the British War Office refused it !

Thanks to Mr. Winston Churchill, who, in 1914, was First Lord
of the Admiralty, the first tanks were produced and, on September
15, 1916, they experienced their baptism of fire on the battlefield
of the Somme. At once the British General Staff gave orders for
the cancellation of all further production of tanks, but thanks to
Sir Albert Stern this order was rescinded. From this date on to
the battle of Hamel, on July 4, 1918, tanks had to fight for their
existence, not against the enemy's opposition but against tradi-

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 115

tion, and so well did they fight that, in 1921, General Von Zwehl
was able to write : " It was not the genius of Marshal Foch that
defeated us, but ' General Tank.' "*

I do not intend here to prove this assertion, for it has already
been proved in many books ; in place I will simply take the tank
as it existed during the Great War and show that in proportion as
it was a life-saving invention so also was it a demoralizing agent,
and, further, how it was on the point of revolutionizing tactics
when the Armistice put an end to the war.

On the battlefield of the Somme, in 1916, it accomplished
little of a startling nature and yet sufficient to have persuaded all
but the traditionally blind that it was a weapon wherewith the
war on land could be won at comparatively small cost. On
September 25, one tank, followed closely by infantry, moved along
about a mile of trench line and forced 362 Germans to surrender
and at a cost to the infantry of five men killed and wounded.
The point to note in this small operation is that the tank was in
front of the infantry, a very common-sense position, for just as a
man equipped with a shield carries it in front of him and not
behind him, so when armoured machines accompany infantry
their proper place is in front !

Common-sense has, however, nothing whatever to do with
tradition ; for, as the tank operations which followed proved,
common-sense is generally the antithesis of custom. Because the
manuals laid it down that infantry were the decisive arm, and
because officers had been fed on the manuals, in spite of the
armoured tank, the infantry continued from September, 1916, to
November, 1917, to lead the assault. Then, on November 20, at
the battle of Cambrai, tradition received such a blow between
the eyes that even the most pessimistic asserted that the tank had
at length come into its own. At this battle, an advance of 10,000
yards was made in twelve hours at a cost of 6,000 casualties, and
8,000 Germans and 100 guns were captured. At the third battle of
Ypres a similar penetration took three months and cost over

* " Die Schlachten im Sommer, 1918, an der West Front," von H. Von Zwehl,
General der Infanterie a D.

8*

116 The Reformation of War

350,000 casualties. The traditional school was, however,
only tank-shocked. In April, 1918, the Tank Corps was
reduced from 18 to 12 Battalions because infantry reinforce-
ments were falling short ! On July 4, 1918, at the battle of
Hamel, tanks started once again in rear of the infantry ! The
infantry attack was on the point of petering out when the 60
tanks co-operating caught up the leading wave of Australians
and led them through to their final objective. The tank crews
suffered no fatal casualties, the Australians lost 672 in killed and
wounded and 1,500 Germans were captured. Then followed the
battles of Soissons, July 18, and of Amiens, August 8, and the tank
became the terror of Germany. On July 1, 1916, the first day of
the battle of the Somme, the British Army suffered 40,000 casual-
ties ; on the first day of the battle of Amiens the casualties were
slightly under 1,000 !

During July, August, September, October and November,
1916, the British Army lost approximately 475,000 men, it cap-
tured 30,000 prisoners and occupied some 90 square miles of
country. During the same months, in 1917, the losses were
370,000, the prisoners captured were 25,000, and the ground
occupied was about 45 square miles. In July, August, September,
October and November, 1918, the losses were 345,000, the prisoners
captured 176,000, and the ground occupied was 4,000 square miles.
If now we divide these losses by the number of square miles cap-
tured, we shall obtain a rough estimate of casualties per square
mile gained. These figures are approximately as follows :

(a) July to November, 1916 :

475,000-7-90 sq. miles =5,277 casualties per sq. mile.

(b) July to November, 1917 :

370,000-7-45 sq. miles =8,222 casualties per sq. mile.

(c) July to November, 1918 :

345,000-^-4,000 sq. miles=86 casualties per sq. mile.

In the third period alone were tanks used efficiently.
During the early days of the third battle of Ypres, in 1917, it
became apparent to the General Staff of the British Tank Corps

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 117

that, though it was always possible, granted the ground was
passable, to break an enemy's front by means of tanks, by tradi-
tional methods of warfare it was most difficult to prevent this
broken front falling back on its reserves or to prevent the reserves
reinforcing the shattered fragments. A project was, conse-
quently, devised to overcome this difficulty. It consisted in the
use of two types of tanks, one type, 26 feet long, to assault the
enemy's front, and another type, 30 feet long, to move right through
this front and deposit in rear of it a chain of machine-gun posts-
Each long tank, besides its crew, was to carry forward within it
20 machine gunners with 4 machine guns. The point of interest
in this novel form of attack was that its target was the morally
weakest point in the enemy's battle body, namely, his rear.

On May 24, 1918, the General Staff of the Tank Corps made
out another project, which carried the attack on the enemy's moral
a step further.

From 1 914 onwards, traditional warfare had sought to over-
come the enemy's resistance by defeating his fighting troops.
Such a defeat would result in the demoralization of his command
and his administrative services. The demoralization of his
command would react on the will of the enemy's people, who might
be reduced to so nervous a condition that they would either over-
throw their government or force it to sue for peace. As the means
of this method of warfare were superiority of weapon-power and
man-power, that is brute force, and as, in the spring of 191 8, the
Germans were numerically superior to the Allies, there appeared
no immediate chance of winning the war by traditional methods.
Consequently, it was considered that some other solution should be
attempted. The proposals made were as follows :

The strength of the enemy's fighting forces depended on
the solidarity of their organization, which, in its turn, rested
on the integrity of the enemy's command and system of supply.
If these two props could be knocked away, then the whole of
the battle front supported by them would collapse. In order
to effect this moral debacle of the enemy's body, the Tank Corps

118 The Reformation of War

General Staff suggested that, for the 1919 campaign, two
separate forces of tanks should be employed :

(i.) A force of fast moving machines which, under cover of
darkness or smoke, would, at top speed, rush through the
enemy's fighting body and, making for all Divisional, Corps
and Army Headquarters, paralyse these brain and nerve
centres by direct attack ; simultaneously, other fast
machines were to attack all railheads, supply and signal
centres, and reduce the personnel at these points to a
state of panic.

(ii.) A force of slower and more heavily armoured machines
were to precede the attacking infantry and assault the
enemy's front at the moment the faster machines were
demoralizing and destroying the brains and stomach.

It was considered that if an attack of this nature could
be delivered on a frontage of from 80 to 160 kilometres, such a
demoralizing blow would be delivered that the greater part
of the German front in France would crumble and produce
such a condition of despair within Germany that the Germans
would accept defeat.

The operation was a novel one, and it redounds to the credit
of the Imperial General Staff in London that they accepted
it in detail, and on July 20, 1918, communicated it to
Marshal Foch, then Generalissimo of the Allied Armies, who
agreed " in every way with the main principles of the study."
Consequently this plan of operations was accepted as the basic
tactical idea for the 1919 campaign.

Though Fate was to decide that this attack was not to take
place, since hostilities terminated in November, 1918, it is
nevertheless interesting to note the following evolution : that
the war opened with traditional warfare ; that the underlying
idea of all traditional operations is killing ; that by degrees

The First Lap of the Moral Epoch 119

this idea gave way to that of demoralizing, until, finally, a
method of attack was devised which all but ignored brute force
and which for slaughter substituted nervous shock, aiming a
moral blow at the brain in place of a physical blow at the body
of the enemy's army.

VI

THE WEAPON OF THE FUTURE

IN the last Chapter I showed that the tactical tendency
in modern warfare was to strike at the moral rather than
at the muscle of an enemy ; I also stated that, in my opinion,
gas would prove itself to be the weapon which, of all weapons,
could accomplish this blow the most economically. The tank
and aeroplane, be it well remembered, are not weapons, but only
vehicles — means of carrying weapons.

In this present Chapter I intend examining gas as a weapon.
First of all it should be realized that the utility of gas in war
is not a new idea. In modern times, this idea was thought of
in 1812 and again during the Crimean war by Lord Dundonald.
In 1864, Mr. B. W. Richardson, considering gas warfare, went
so far as to write :

" The question is, shall these things be ? I do not see that humanity-
should revolt, for would it not be better to destroy a host in Regent's
Park by making the men fall as in a mystical sleep, than to let down
on them another host to break their bones, tear their limbs asunder
and gouge out their entrails with three-cornered pikes ; leaving
a vast majority undead and writhing for hours in torments of the
damned ? "*

In 1899, the employment of lethal gas as a weapon was dis-
cussed at the Hague, and its use was forbidden, this prohibition
only serving to give Germany, in 1915, a superior weapon to
those wielded by her enemies. Possessing no protection against
it, the British and French troops suffered accordingly, and
anathematized the new weapon, not only because it was new,

* Popular Science Review, 3.176. (1864).
120

The Weapon of the Future 121

but because it was extremely powerful and Germany held
the whip hand as regards its production. The evil name then
given to gas has, in the popular imagination, clung to it ever
since, for the people do not reason, because what their eyes
have read their lips repeat. With the populace I have no quarrel,
for they are docile, thoughtless creatures depending on others
for their ideas ; but with people like Sir Edward Thorpe,
President of the British Association in 1921, it is otherwise,
for they at least are presumed to be intelligent. Following
in the footsteps of the worthy Baron de Jomini, some of whose
ideas I have already quoted, Sir Edward has pronounced the
use of lethal gas to be " one of the most bestial episodes in the
history of the Great War. . . . Surely," he exclaims, " comity
among nations should be adequate to arrest it " and then,
deviating from the path of Jomini, the only means he suggests
is to leave the solution of this problem to the unfortunate
League of Nations, and to urge all scientists to set their face
" against the continued degradation of science in . . . augment-
ing the horrors of war ! ' Gas warfare is not, as Sir Edward
Thorpe asserts, " the very negation of civilization," for it is,
in fact, a product of civilization and an outcrop of science which
will endure ; because, as Captain Auld says :

" Chemical Warfare has come to stay. It is inconceivable that
the light barriers of mutual consent or of edict can effectively close
the road I speak of. Military history and human nature are against
it at every turn. No case is known of a successful new weapon or
a tactical advantage having been discarded once its value was ap-
parent. No agreement or treaty has proved strong enough to bind
an unscrupulous enemy seeking an advantage, or for that matter
one with its existence at stake. To avoid the new road is to risk
being passed in the race of preparation and being outflanked and
overwhelmed in the event of hostilities.

" Whatever we do in the matter we can bind no one but ourselves.
Until war ceases we must be prepared. Apathy is suicidal. Prejudice
is a crime."*

There can be no doubt, outside Bedlam, of the wisdom

* " Chemical Warfare," by Capt. S. J. M. Auld, O.B.E., M.C., Royal Engineers
Journal, Feb., 1922.

122 The Reformation of War

of these words, just as there can be no doubt that the decision
of the Hague Convention presented Germany, a country un-
scrupulous and fighting for her life, with a means wherewith,
had she been wise, she might well have won the war. Yet, at
the Washington Disarmament Conference of 1921, at which
were assembled intelligent human beings, what do we find
was decided ? As follows :

" The use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and
all analogous liquids, materials or devices, having been justly con-
demned by the general opinion of the civilized world and a pro-
hibition of such use having been declared in Treaties to which a
majority of the civilized Powers are parties,

" The Signatory Powers, to the end that this prohibition shall
be universally accepted as a part of international law binding alike
the conscience and practice of nations, declare their assent to such
prohibition, agree to be bound thereby as between themselves and
invite all other civilized nations to adhere thereto."

Then, in place of defining what is meant by " all analogous
liquids, materials or devices," a veritable witches' cauldron of
mysteries, this Conference, in the footsteps of Sir Edward
Thorpe and others, indulges in abuse. The Report continues :

" It undertakes further to denounce the use of poisonous gases
and chemicals in war, as they were used to the horror of all civilization
in the war of 1914-1918.

" Cynics have said that in the stress of war these rules will be
violated. Cynics are always near-sighted, and oft and usual the
decisive facts lie beyond the range of their vision."

Before I examine the first part of this astonishing agree-
ment, I will examine the question of the cynics :

Giordano Bruno died at the stake because he was a cynic.
Galileo perished in prison and Copernicus just died in time
to escape persecution because they were cynics. Roger Bacon,
a terrible cynic, hid the secret of gunpowder in a cryptograph.
Solomon de Caus was locked up in a madhouse for proclaiming
that ships and vehicles could be moved by steam. Simpson,
who first made use of chloroform in obstetrics, was considered
an agent of the devil, and so was Jenner, the introducer of vaccina-
tion against smallpox. George Stephenson, probably the greatest

The Weapon of the Future 123

of all cynics, was virtually outlawed. His invention, the loco-
motive, was declared to be " contrary to the law of God," be-
cause " it would prevent cows grazing, hens laying, and would
cause ladies to give premature birth to children at the sight of
these things going forward at the rate of four and a half miles
an hour ! "

With reference to the locomotive, I cannot forbear quoting
from the Quarterly Review of 1825, for the quotation is in
character so traditional.

" What can be more palpably absurd and ridiculous than the
prospect held out of locomotives travelling twice as fast as stage
coaches ! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to
suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet
rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going
at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich
Railway for any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways
it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour,
which, we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvester, is as great as can be
ventured on with safety."

Gunpowder, the most revolutionary military discovery
prior to that of gas, was anathematized beyond belief. In the
Middle Ages wars were very frequent, because weapons were
very simple and unscientific. Knights boasted of their courts
and codes of chivalry, but, when battles took place, there was
usually, as one chronicler puts it, " a horrid slaughter among
the common folk." The reason for this was that the common
folk were not worth taking prisoners — they had little in their
pockets. Then came Roger Bacon's gunpowder, and, as Carlyle
says : " this logic even the Hyperborean understands," for,
" it makes all men alike tall. . . . Hereby, at last, is the
Goliath powerless and the David resistless ; savage animalism
is nothing, inventive spiritualism is all." Mind has in fact
triumphed over body, and upon gunpowder is modern democracy
founded.

Needless to say, the knight, who, dressed in steel plate, was
immune from democratic sticks and stones, strongly objected
to be shot by a poltroon, that is, a peasant armed with an

124 The Reformation of War

arquebus. To give such a knave power over the knight was
an insult which could not be tolerated ; it was utterly barbarous,
and as late as 1626 we find a certain Mr. Monro writing :

"It is thought that the invention of cannons was found first at
Nuremberg for the ruin of man . . . how soone the trumpet did
sounde, the enemy was thundered on, first with those as with showers
of hailstones, so that the enemies were cruelly affrighted with them,
men of valour being suddenly taken away, who before were wont
to fight valiantly and long with the sword and lance, more for the
honour of victory ; than for any desire of shedding of blood ; but
now, men are marterysed and cut downe, at more than half a mile
of distance, by these furious and thundering engines of great cannon,
that sometimes shoote fiery bullets able to burn whole cities, castles,
houses or bridges, where they chance to light, and if they happen
to light within walls, or amongst a briggad of foote or horse, as they
did at Leipsigh, in the grave fon Torne his briggad, spoiled a number
at once, as doubtless the devilish invention did within Walestine,
his leaguer at this time."

Mr. Monro was wrong, because gunpowder humanized sword
and lance warfare. The cynic of 1626 was right, and so, in 1922,
will the cynic once again prove himself right, because gas will
humanize the type of warfare Monro objected to, but which the
members of the Washington Conference wish to maintain. Just
as William Napier objected to the introduction into the British
Army of the Minie rifle, a weapon with a range of one thousand
yards, because, as he said with some heat, " it would turn in-
fantry into long-range assassins," so, to-day, do we find many
eminent people objecting to gas warfare, because, being a novelty,
its meaning is only sufficiently understood by them to realize
that it may disturb their preconceived ideas, which, through
long acquaintance, have become cherished personal belongings.

I will now turn back to the compact and examine the peculiarly
ambiguous wording — " other gases and all analogous liquids,
materials or devices." What do these words mean ? They
vaguely and all embracingly can mean nothing outside every-
thing. In fact they mean that no chemical whatever may be
used in war. This is absurd, because no nation can accept a
decision which excludes all harmless lachrymators and smokes

The Weapon of the Future 125

which may save life, as well as high explosives which give off
carbon monoxide. If this compact be carried to its ultimate
conclusion, then the use of petrol gas in military motor cars,
and of coal gas in officers' billets, are also forbidden ! The above
words exclude and debar so much that they really include nothing,
for all that an enemy has got to do, in peace time, is to prepare
vast quantities of various gases, for he knows for a certainty,
from the wording of this compact, that innumerable excuses
will always be found on the battlefield, such as the use by his
adversary of T.N.T. or picric acid, which will provide him with
an excuse to retaliate with the real " stuff." " To us," to quote
from an American scientific journal, " the endeavour to abolish
chemical warfare throughout the world by the resolutions of the
present Conference reminds us of the experience of King Canute
in commanding the tides not to rise." Personally, it reminds
me of that " cunning " bird the ostrich.

I will now inquire into the military reasons why I believe that
gas will prove itself to be the weapon of the future.

First of all what is a weapon ? A weapon is a means of im-
posing by force a policy upon an adversary. The policy of a
nation, as I have explained, should be enforced with the least
loss possible to either side and to the world at large. The less
this loss the better will the policy enforced flourish. The security
of peaceful prosperity is the object of war, not slaughter. A
weapon should, therefore, possess the following characteristics :

(i.) Its production should not detrimentally affect prosperity.

(ii.) It should be simple to manufacture in peace or war.

(hi.) Its nature should be unknown to the enemy.

(iv.) It should economize time on the battlefield.

(v.) It should incapacitate without killing.

(vi.) It should permit of an antidote being known to the

side using it.
(vii.) It should effect no permanent damage to property.

The weapons of traditional warfare do not permit of these
characteristics being developed, as they are all based on the idea

126 The Reformation of War

of physical and material destruction. Gunpowder revolutionized
the means of war but not its underlying idea, and it only gave
rise to the use of more powerful weapons of the killing type ;
and so all the more frightening and, consequently, less de-
structive. I will now show that gas as a weapon will not only
effect an equally great revolution of means, but also a revolution
in idea.

(i.) Economy in Production. Armies and navies are of
necessity expensive organizations, because they detract in place
of adding to peaceful prosperity. During the last hundred years
they have become more and more costly in proportion as the
means used by them have diverged from the civil means. At
the beginning of the last century a good fowling-piece differed
little from the musket of the day, and a merchantman could
rapidly be converted into a ship of war. To-day the rifle and
machine gun have no civil uses outside Ireland, and a super-
Dreadnought not only possesses no commercial value, but detracts
from commercial prosperity by costing about £8,000,000, or
considerably more than the whole British Navy did in 1823.

Gas is an article of commerce, and most of the gases employed
during the Great War were manufactured not only by the normal
commercial processes but from chemicals in everyday use.
Modern civilization could scarcely exist if such chemicals as
chlorine, phosgene and hydrocyanic acid were removed. Thou-
sands of tons of all these substances are yearly made use of for
bleaching, disinfecting, dyeing and killing rodent and insect
pests. Consequently, we see that, in gases and war chemicals,
we possess not only a means of securing national prosperity,
but also a means of fostering it. This in itself constitutes a
stupendous economic revolution. To-day, Germany possesses
seventy per cent, of the organic chemical output of the entire
world. In the next war she can use, if she so will, the whole of her
chemical plant for the production of warlike chemicals. Great
Britain possesses but eleven per cent, of the world's output. What
does this mean ? It means that, in spite of the treaty of
Versailles, which limited the size of Germany's army, navy,

The Weapon of the Future 127

and air force, Germany still possesses gas supremacy, and, of
this supremacy in 1915, Mr. Balfour, at the Washington Con-
ference, said that, " the result had been very near to a complete
disaster for the allied armies." Should not we, therefore, do
our utmost to foster organic chemistry at home ; yet how can
we create the necessary supply unless we create a demand for
it. If gas becomes our predominant weapon, then a demand
for it will be created, and in seeking for new war gases we shall
undoubtedly discover chemicals of great commercial utility.
" The Chemical Warfare Service," says Mr. R. S. McBride,
" furnishing as it does an important link in the chain of chemical
industries, contributes to peace-time welfare of the community."
This alone sufficiently justifies its cost, " even though its military
value as a measure of defence were entirely ignored."*

Compared to the cost of the means employed in traditional
warfare, the cost of war chemicals is insignificant. On January
16, 1922, in a speech before the Compressed Gas Manufacturers'
Association, New York City, Brigadier-General Amos A. Fries,
chief of the U.S.A. Chemical Warfare Service, said :

" Chemical Warfare cost the United States in the World War just
about $150,000,000. The total cost of that war to the United States
is estimated at $30,000,000,000, or two hundred times the cost of
Chemical Warfare, and yet Chemical Warfare had a profound
influence in causing the Germans to surrender. Briefly, Chemical
Warfare was as cheap as it was effective and humane. If the United
States wants economy in peace while at the same time being prepared
for any emergency, gas is the weapon above all others."

(ii.) Simplicity of Manufacture. Simplicity of manufacture
of weapons during war time is frequently a synonym of victory.
Men are generally forthcoming, but unless weapons can rapidly
be produced in bulk these men are useless, and, unless the nature
of the weapons made is simple, bulk production will not be
rapid. During the recent war, the training of the British New
Armies was seriously delayed on account of shortage of weapons,
and it was not until the beginning of 1918, or after more than

* " Chemical Warfare and the Arms Treaty," R. S. McBride, Chemical and
Metallurgical Engineering, February 22, 1922.

128 The Reformation of War

three years' strenuous effort, that sufficient shells were produced
to satisfy the demands made. If, before the war, we had devoted
our attention to war gases, it is quite conceivable that we might
have discovered a gas against which the Germans would have
possessed no immediate protection, and that, by firing a few
thousand projectiles loaded with this gas from the existing
field guns, we should have attained greater results than we did
by multiplying high explosive shells by the million ; which,
in their turn, demanded thousands of extra guns and gunners
to fire them. During the war, we multiplied the nature of our
guns and so complicated training. What gas enables us to do is
to use the same gun and only change the nature of the chemical
inside the shell, which scarcely, if at all, affects the training of
the gunners. Further still, gas is, what may be called, a universal
weapon ; that is to say, " in the mechanics of firing chemical
ammunition there is no difference whatever from the mechanics
of firing high explosives or shrapnel."

For any weapon to be manufactured rapidly, it is necessary
to have its components at hand. If a country cannot produce
these, then at any crisis it may suffer from a weapon-famine.
What is the main source of chemical warfare ? Coal — coal-tar
and oil, from which also most of the medicines and dyes of the
world are produced. In Great Britain we possess vast resources
of coal ; consequently, for chemical warfare supplies we are not
dependent on foreign products. Not only is it unnecessary for
us to obtain from abroad our raw material for weapons, but,
in place of spending our money on foreign nitrates, we can spend
it on home-mined coal. Germany is also a great coal producing
country ; if in another war, as in the last, she loses her command
of the sea, is it humanly likely that she will placidly accept
defeat because of a shortage of traditional weapons when gigantic
resources for the production of chemical weapons are actually
but a few yards under her feet ?

(hi.) Secrecy of Nature. Secrecy in the nature of weapons
is the foundation of tactical surprise, and surprise, as I have
shown, is the most economical principle whereon to build grand

The Weapon of the Future 129

tactics. In war, surprise is the pivot of victory. In the past,
the brute-force theory of warfare has to a great extent been
foisted on to the armies and navies of civilized nations on account
of their inability to keep their weapons secret. And, when they
have attempted to do so, as in the case of the French mitrailleuse
in 1870, training has suffered so severely that on the battlefield
the weapons have proved useless. The difficulty has been, and
still is, that once a weapon is in the hand of the soldier its char-
acteristics soon become known to other nations, the most noted
exception to this being the recoil system of the French 75 mm.
field gun. In this case, however, it was unnecessary for
the soldier to examine it, yet once in the hands of the soldier
this contrivance might easily have been sold to a foreign country.
It is not practically possible to keep a bullet or a shell secret.
It is, however, possible to keep the contents of a shell secret.
A new explosive may be discovered and may be kept secret, but
in effect it will only be a modification of existing means of de-
struction. A new gas may, however, be kept an absolute secret,
and, what is equally important, its antidote may be kept secret
as well. During peace time, let us suppose that a gunner is
trained to fire shells filled with chlorine gas and that the container
of his respirator possesses the necessary antidotes to chlorine.
On mobilization he is given shell X and he changes his training
respirator for one possessing substance Y, which is an antidote
to X. X and Y are absolute secrets, he has not the faintest
idea what they are, and yet they may enable him to defeat his
adversary within a few minutes of the first attack being launched.
I will corroborate this self-evident advantage possessed by
chemical weapons by again quoting from Mr. McBride.

" Gas as a military agency can be developed by research and
its manufacture continued in secret indefinitely, if any nation wishes,
despite any number of international agreements to the contrary.
In this respect it differs fundamentally from battleships and forti-
fications, which cannot be so secretly constructed and preserved."

(iv.) Economy of Time. The activities of war, even more
so than those of peace, are controlled by time, for in war speed

9

130 The Reformation of War

and improvisation are predominant conditions. As regards
weapons, time, in its military sense, is a correlative of effect.
Thus, the speed of fire, such as is possessed by the machine gun,
would be useless if the bullets were ineffective, and ineffective
they frequently are when fired against an earthwork, or a tank,
or into the blue. With gas the actual rate of fire may be much
slower than that of traditional projectiles, though as it is normally
carried within these projectiles, it is the same. But, if volume of
fire be considered, it will at once become apparent that no tradi-
tional weapon possesses this quality to the extent of gas. From
a rifle ten aimed shots can be fired in a minute, from a machine
gun six hundred, from a field gun twenty shells, and, if shrapnel,
each will contain 365 bullets, so that in a minute 7,300 bullets
will be fired. Gas is, however, composed of chemical molecules
each of which can disable ; consequently, the projectiles of a
gas bombardment cannot be reckoned by thousands per minute
but by thousands of trillions. In fact, so immense a number,
that it is not even necessary to know the position of the target ;
all that is necessary is to know in what area it is, and then to
inundate this area. Unlike a bullet, the effect of gas does not
cease once the force generated to propel it is spent, for, while
the bullet is " dead " the gas molecule is " alive," and may remain
alive for days after gas has been projected. If the reader can
imagine a machine gun which can fire millions of bullets a second,
each bullet drifting on after the force of the original discharge
has been spent, creeping through trees and houses, wandering
over walls and into shelters and dug-outs, then he will have some
idea how gas can be used to economize military time.

(v.) Economy of Life. I have already repeatedly accentuated
the fact that, in modern warfare, the object is to enforce a policy
and not to kill and destroy. I realize that, in all probability, for
many years to come killing will be an unavoidable attribute of
battle, but it stands to reason that, if killing can be reduced, war-
fare will become more economical and the object of war will be
the better attained. I have already examined the alleged horrors
of gas warfare and have shown definitely that, during the recent

The Weapon of the Future 131

war, it was twelve times as humane as traditional warfare. In
my opinion it can be made more humane still directly the idea of
killing is replaced by that of incapacitating. A bullet is
essentially a lethal weapon, for it is impossible to design a non-
lethal bullet which would be of any practical use in war. It is,
however, quite as feasible to employ non-lethal gases as lethal
ones, and their power to incapacitate is enormous. During the
third battle of Ypres, General Fries states, " that the British had
over 160,000 gas casualties, but only 4,000 deaths — 2\ per cent."
Whether these figures are correct I am unable to say, but, as a
partaker in this battle, I can vouch that after mud, mustard gas
was the severest resistant encountered.

On the three days preceding the attack, on March 21, 1918, it
is estimated that the Germans fired 250,000 mustard-gas shells
against the British Third Army, which suffered a loss of 500
officer casualties.

' ' In spite of the fact that the Germans had no reserve gas for many
days after the beginning of the Argonne fighting — the greatest battle
in American history — the gas casualties among the Americans,
according to the best information, amounted to 27.2 per cent, of all
American battle casualties. This is all the more remarkable when
we consider that about one half of all American battle casualties
occurred in the battle of the Argonne, where the Germans had
practically no gas. They had used up all reserves of that material
against the British and the French earlier in the season, and hence
had only daily production to draw upon."*

These are a few examples of the direct effect of gas as an in-
capacitating weapon ; I will now examine its indirect effect. If
soldiers, in order to protect themselves against bullets, had to don
armour, even if this armour could be made proof, the bullet would
not lose its whole value, for, by forcing the soldier to wear armour,
it would soon reduce him to a state of physical exhaustion. In
place of attacking his body it would attack his mobility. Gas,
by compelling a soldier to wear a respirator, can accomplish this
important military result. " Physical vigour," writes General
Sibert (Director Chemical Warfare Service, U.S.A., in 1919), " is

* Extract from United States War Department Annual Report, 191 9.

132 The Reformation of War

one of the greatest assets in any army. Gas, used properly and
in quantities that will be easily obtainable in future wars, will
make the wearing of the mask a continuous affair for all troops
within two to five miles of the front line, and in certain places for
many miles beyond. If it never killed a man, the reduction in
physical vigour and, therefore, efficiency of an army forced at all
times to wear masks would amount to at least 25 per cent."

If the statistics of the total casualties of the Great War, so far
as they are ascertainable, are examined, it will be found that by
far the greatest number of casualties were suffered by the infantry,
and that these casualties were inflicted by infantry weapons —
bullets fired by rifles and machine guns. It follows, consequently,
that, if infantry could be abolished, warfare would be made much
more humane and economical than it is to-day, and, as one writer
puts it, " without infantry, the ravages of war would be reduced
something like eighty per cent.," and then adds, " When the frock
coats get about the long table and begin to talk about limiting
war's barbarity, they want to realize that they won't do much
good by omitting a little of the millinery of war. What the world
wants them to do is to keep the infantry at home."*

Gas will accomplish this very effectively, as I will now show.

An infantry soldier cannot go into action in a diver's suit with
a mile or two of piping played out from a spool on his back, yet
so powerful are certain modern gases, such as Lewisite, that they
will penetrate without difficulty all ordinary clothing and burn
the skin beneath it. To put a man into an air-tight suit is im-
practicable, as in battle he will die of heat apoplexy. Infantry, as
infantry, can play but a small part in gas warfare, and with their
disappearance can war be humanized, as I will show later on.

There are two further reasons why gas warfare will economize
life by reducing casualties. The first is that, as I have explained,
gas is a universal weapon, it can be used by all arms ; conse-
quently, the result will be what I will call a universal type of
casualty. The nature of all wounds wall be very similar, because
the means of inflicting them will be similar ; consequently, medical

* Racine, Wisconsin, Call, January 7, 1922.

The Weapon of the Future 133

arrangements on the battlefield can be simplified. The second is
that, since new war gases can be kept secret, surprise in war will
become more frequent and, consequently, the winning of victories
will be speeded up. The shorter the war the less, normally, is the
loss resulting.

(vi.) Assurance of an Antidote. In traditional warfare the
only universal antidote to being killed is to kill, hence its bar-
barous and blood-thirsty nature. From time to time means have
been sought to reduce casualties — such as body armour, helmets,
shields and entrenchments. Gas is, however, unlike all tradi-
tional weapons in that, if a new gas is discovered, immediately
an antidote can be provided for it. Consequently, it is now
possible to send men into battle equipped with weapons against
which the enemy may possess no protection, while our own men
are completely protected. This in itself constitutes such a colossal
tactical revolution that it is difficult at present to see where it
will lead. In my own opinion it will sound the death-knell of
infantry as we know them to-day, and how this will be accom-
plished I will explain in a future Chapter. One fact requires,
however, to be accentuated, namely, no nation can hope to protect
their fighting forces effectively against gas unless offensive gas
warfare is studied during peace time and the troops themselves
trained to understand what this form of warfare entails.

(vii.) Economy of Property. As the objective in war is to
guarantee and safeguard prosperhy, destruction, even of the
enemy's property, should be avoided. In modern warfare the
means of destruction have become so great that no nation con-
siders its frontiers safe unless it possesses an army sufficiently
powerful to destroy the enemy before the enemy can destroy it.
The horror of the results of invasion was one of the causes not
only of the Great War but of the armed peace which preceded its
outbreak.

The war of 1914-1918 was a war of high explosives, and tradi-
tional methods of destruction were carried to such a pitch that
entire towns were demolished, villages completely vanished, not
a stone remaining, and the surface of hundreds of square miles of

134 The Reformation of War

fields, vineyards and orchards was literally blown away. It is
incredible that anyone, who has the welfare of humanity at heart,
can wish to repeat this devastation. Yet it cannot be avoided as
long as traditional warfare is maintained. Substitute gas warfare
for high explosive warfare and a remedy presents itself ; this is
what the short-sighted cynic wants, but the professional humani-
tarian will have none of it. Why ? Because he is blinded by
tradition, and should he happen to be a politician, he is unable to
forget his votes — truth must be obscured so that he may continue
to rule the blotting-paper brained multitudes.

After reading through what I have already written, I cannot
conceive how any rational person can have the face to maintain
that traditional warfare is more economical and humane than
chemical warfare. I can understand anyone wishing to abolish
war, for the world is full of those who have no stomach for a fight ;
but I cannot understand how it is possible for people judged sane,
people who have lived through the last war, even if at a safe dis-
tance, wishing to repeat its destruction. This they are doing as
long as they prevent armies and fleets developing on scientific
lines. For the prosperity of the world, scientific military research
is essential. " Scientists are making," says General Hartley,
" very rapid advances, and many of these will have a direct bearing
on the next war. It is absolutely essential to make adequate
provision to continue research on gas warfare problems, as other-
wise all preparations for defence may prove valueless. . . . Such
research can only be made effective by the closest sympathy and
co-operation between soldiers and scientists, and unless their co-
operation is much closer than it was before the late war, there will
be little chance of success. It is for the scientists to explore the
possibilities and to develop such as are thought likely to be of
value, and for the soldiers to apply the results to their investiga-
tion of war problems."*

At least a military generation will have to pass by before a
stock of soldiers is bred which can fulfil their part in this contract,

* " British and German Gas Warfare," Brig. -General H. Hartley, C.B.E.,
M.C., The Journal of the Royal Artillery, February, 1920.

The Weapon of the Future 135

and then it will take another generation of soldiers to work out
scientifically the changes which traditional tactics must undergo.
Those of us who believe in the inevitability of war are nevertheless
apt to think, as great wars only occur at about fifty year intervals,
that, whatever changes science may demand, we have ample time
to rest before seriously setting to work to discover what the next
great war will require. No assumption could be more fallacious,
for, before a new military idea is accepted, a whole school of obso-
lete ideas, religious in their intolerance, has to be converted to
the new idea, and not until it is converted will efficient
training take place, and training is an all essential of victory. If
the truth must be known, should the next great war explode
in 1972, then, if we work hard, we may just be able to convert the
traditional school in time and replace it by a school of military
scientists. Not brawny halberdiers skilled at the game of push
of pikes or push of bullets or push of shells, bullets and shells
which strike down fool and sage alike ; but intelligent thinkers
who will push their ideas to the detriment of the enemy's beef,
who will pit brain against muscle, and, if opposed by muscle alone,
will win a war quite possibly in a night without a day, as in the
next Chapter I will explain.

VII

THE FUTURE OF AIR WARFARE

IN the last Chapter I stated that gas was a universal weapon
because it could be employed by all types of arms. In
this Chapter and the two following, I will substantiate this state-
ment by showing that to-day we are approaching the adoption
of a universal means of military movement which will more
completely than ever before enable the universal weapon to
be employed.

In the past, the motive force of all military movement on
land has been muscular power, and, tactically, this was the
main motive energy used throughout the Great War, which,
in my opinion, will definitely close a military epoch stretch-
ing from the cave man to the present day. This muscular
power was of two degrees — human and animal. Tactically,
the soldier is simply a weapon mounting of about one-eighth
h.p. energy, which limits, to a considerable extent, the nature
and power of the weapons he carries. In the past, in order to
increase the speed of the soldier the only means available was
to mount him on an animal of greater muscular energy than
himself, and if, when so mounted, he was unable to carry a
certain weapon, this weapon was either carried on an animal
or hauled by one or more animals. In the South African War
we see as many as thirty-two oxen harnessed to a five-inch
gun, and each animal requiring fodder added enormously to
the complexity of war.

As the limitations of muscular energy in their turn limited
the nature and power of weapons, consequently we see, especially
in modern times, the introduction of a great variety of weapons,
each attempting to make good certain deficiencies in the others

136

The Future of Air Warfare 137

due to the deficiencies in their mountings. Thus, for example :
if it were possible for an infantryman to carry a machine gun
and several thousand rounds of ammunition, the rifle would
long ago have been scrapped. And, again, if it were possible
for six horses to haul at high speed a six-inch gun and one
hundred shells, eighteen-pounder field guns would no longer
be required. But such changes have not been possible because
muscle power possesses definite limits.

To-day, we possess an all but universal means of movement
— the petrol engine, which will influence land weapons as it
is to-day influencing air weapons, and as steam has and is
influencing naval weapons. At sea, in capital ships, we
see a tendency towards a universal weapon — the big shell ;
and in auxiliary craft a tendency towards a universal weapon —
the torpedo. These weapons are very similar in nature, though
the first is used for out-fighting and the second for in-fighting,
for both are but metal containers filled with high explosives.

In the air there is a greater difference, two entirely different
weapons being used. The big aeroplane carries the bomb and
the small the machine gun. In the future, I believe that these
two weapons will more closely coincide ; this I will discuss pre-
sently ; meanwhile, I will examine the most universal means of
movement yet devised, namely, the aeroplane, with its power
of movement in three dimensions.

Though the power of three dimensional movement by aircraft
is generally recognized, the influence of this power on the future
of warfare is in continual dispute, because, so I believe, we have
not yet learnt to think of war from its third dimensional aspect.

Hitherto strategy, or the art of moving fighting units — armies
or fleets — has been either one or two dimensional in nature.
On land, the major strategical movements are normally one
dimensional, because armies, and particularly modern armies,
cannot move or supply themselves rapidly unless movement
is directed along roads, railways, canals, or rivers. These con-
stitute lines of advance, each line possessing two directions,
that is facility to move forwards or backwards. Where these

138 The Reformation of War

lines do not exist, the nature of war tends towards that of par-
tisan operations ; in other words, wars in countries devoid of
communications are tactically small wars, however large the
forces employed may be. At sea, naval movements are in nature
two dimensional, because the vehicle of movement is an area
and not a line ; the exception to this rule is the power of move-
ment of the submarine, which I will discuss in Chapter IX.

Bearing in mind these three dimensions of movement, it
will at once be recognized that the future strategical problems
of war are closely connected with the protection of land roads,
sea roads, and air roads, in order that trade may prosper, and,
in the event of it being threatened, may be secured by military
force.

As the powers of aircraft include the dimensions of move-
ment made use of by armies and fleets, it stands to reason that,
of the three great defence forces of civilized nations, the air
force is the only one which can closely and continually co-operate
with the other two. On account of this ability to co-operate,
that is to move with armies or navies and yet independently
of them, we are faced by the following portentous strategical
problem : may not this power of aerial co-operation become
so perfect that, in place of aircraft co-operating with navies
and armies, these forces will instead co-operate with aircraft,
and that possibly, at some date in the future, the utility of armies
and navies will be reduced to zero, aircraft entirely replacing
them ? I will shortly examine this problem, which embraces
the following three sub-problems :

(i.) The influence of aircraft on land warfare,
(ii.) The influence of aircraft on sea warfare,
(hi.) The independent action of aircraft in air warfare.

Before examining these sub-problems, it is necessary to
make certain of the tactical limitations of aircraft, for this will
enable us to consider these problems logically.

Aircraft are of two types— the lighter and the heavier than air
machines. I am of opinion that the main purpose of the airship

The Future of Air Warfare 139

in future warfare will be the carriage of supplies rather than offen-
sive action, though these vessels may assist this action by long-
range reconnaissance. The airship is virtually the tramp
steamer of the air, and there is no reason why vessels should not
be built which could circumnavigate the globe, or carry a hundred
tons and upwards for distances ranging over thousands of miles.
Compared to an aeroplane, the airship is a slow moving craft
with a lower ceiling on account of the danger of rising above
the hail line ; it is conspicuous even at high altitudes, readily
picked up by searchlights and easily held within their rays.
It is easily attackable and cannot well be armoured, it requires
a numerous personnel to maintain it, an expensive housing
and mooring system, and it is a gluttonous consumer of gas.
Its one predominant characteristic is that it can remain motion-
less in the air without the expenditure of energy.

The chief characteristic of the aeroplane is speed of loco-
motion in three dimensions. This speed to-day is well over
150 miles an hour, and, when diving, 300 miles an hour ;
further still, many aeroplanes can climb at 1,000 feet the
minute. When in movement, an aeroplane can proceed straight
from point to point, motion in the air encountering no physical
obstruction as on land and sea. Its predominant limitation is
that it cannot remain motionless in the air, to which may be
added that the ceiling of a useful war machine is unlikely to
exceed 30,000 feet.

From the above we may deduce the elements of its tactical
nature — a high offensive power and limited means of direct
protection, that is protection by armour. The greater its
radius of action the less offensive it becomes on account of petrol
replacing armament, and the more it is protected by armour
the less will be its range of action on account of steel replacing
petrol. From these deductions, I will extract three tactical
requirements which later on I shall refer to, namely :

(i.) Aircraft protection is to be sought for in the height
they can operate from the ground.

140 The Reformation of War

(ii.) Aircraft offensive power, if the above protection is to
be maintained, depends on the size of the target.

(iii.) Aircraft radius of action depends not only on the amount
of petrol, etc., carried, but on refilling while in the air.

Bearing in mind the aeroplane's three dimensional power
of movement and that the air presents to it no physical obstacle,
the size of an air force is, in theory, unlimited. In practice,
however, this is not true, for as aeroplanes cannot remain motion-
less in the air, the factor which limits the numbers which can
usefully be employed is landing ground, which is more and more
difficult to find as aeroplanes increase in size.

Besides this limitation, the following are of secondary im-
portance : it becomes readily " bogged " in a ground mist,
sense of direction is frequently lost in cloud and fog, landing
at night and in foggy weather on unprepared landing grounds
is dangerous, and further, though an aeroplane is not tied down
to definite tracts of country, as wheeled vehicles are, or to
definite expanses of water, as ships are, it is to a very consider-
able extent tied down to its landing grounds. In the Great
War, on account of its static nature, no great difficulty was
experienced in providing these ; nevertheless, in France during
the last eighteen months of the war, the average wastage in
aeroplanes was between fifty and eighty per cent, per month.
Of these casualties but one quarter were due to hostile action,
the greater number resulting from crashes on landing. Will
crashes in future be less frequent ? This is doubtful in spite of
improvements to be expected. Consequently, as belligerents
may have to replace their entire equipment of machines once
every two months, either an immense number of reserve
machines will have to be maintained during peace time, or co-
operation with the slow moving land forces abandoned, or a
plan of attack evolved which will decide the war within a few
weeks or days or hours of its outbreak.

I will now turn to the three problems of this Chapter :
The Influence of Aircraft on Land Warfare.— At present we

The Future of Air Warfare 141

do not posses a tactical theory of aerial warfare. Our outlook
during the recent war, and to a very great extent to-day, was
and is a Homeric one. Hero met hero in hand-to-hand fight,
and victories were based on individual contests. From this
primitive type of warfare we must expect in the future to see
evolve an elaborate tactics, for in the next great war capture
of the air will become of supreme importance, because of all
tactical " positions " the air is the one which commands all others.
Once this supreme point of vantage is gained, the next tactical
operation will be to deliver an aerial attack on the land forces,
not only on their bodies — their men, horses and guns, but on
their brains — their command headquarters ; on their nerves —
their system of communications ; on their internal organs —
their bases, supply depots, chemical and engineering works
and workshops.

The ultra-traditional school does not hold these views ; its
adherents possess little if any imagination, and what was good
enough for the army and navy in 19 14 is good enough for these
forces to-day. Such is the opinion which they hold, in spite
of the fact that armies and navies as organized and equipped
in 1914 did not win the war. But to these bats blinded by light
this is the fault of the war and not of the 19 14 organization.
Their ignorance is colossal and is only excelled by their lack of
vision. On Armistice Day, 19 18, a typical adherent, without
a smile on his face, said to me : " Thank God ! we can now get
back to real soldiering." Aircraft are quite useful in order to
assist the other arms, to range their guns and to fly about with
cameras and bombs ; they can co-operate, of course ; but act
independently — never ! As to replacing infantry or Dread-
noughts— absurd ! Such are the views held by the older and
fruitier traditional vintage.

The new and raw wine, still not quite fermented, thinks
otherwise. It realizes that the aeroplane is a new means of waging
war, and it applies it to the old end — killing and destruction.
Consequently, in place of humanizing war and so rendering it
less costly and wasteful, these thinkers are frequently terrified

142 The Reformation of War

by their own thoughts. What do they see ? They see columns
of foot and horse wending their way towards their battle area,
whole divisions twelve miles long toiling along dusty roads.
Then they see in the distance tiny specks on the horizon, they
grow bigger, there is a droning of engines — twenty low flying
armoured battle planes top the rise in front, and, before the
wretched infantry have time to unstrap their limbered vehicles
and mount their machine guns, there is a rattle of musketry
from twenty times twenty machine guns. In ten minutes the
whole column is traversed from van to rear, 250,000 bullets have
been pumped into it — not 30,000, as on the Conegliano-Pordonone
road — and the very dust of the highway is churned into a porridge
of blood.

Such warfare as this is truly horrible, because it is so one-
sided. To shoot down infantry in this manner is mere massacre.
But such slaughter must continue so long as infantry exist and
so long as tactics are controlled by the traditional school. Further,
this school believes in material destruction. In the aeroplane
they behold a means of accentuating destruction to such an extent
that killing in bulk will become unnecessary. Here at least we
see a glimmer of light, economic destruction replacing the killing"
of human beings. Of this type of attack Mr. Lanchester writes :

" Depots of every kind in the rear of the enemy's lines would
cease to exist ; rolling stock and mechanical transport would be
destroyed ; no bridge would be allowed to stand for 24 hours ; railway
junctions would be subject to continuous bombardment. ... In
this manner a virtually impassable zone would be created in the rear
of the enemy's defences, a zone varying, perhaps, from 100 to 200
miles in width . . . not only will the defence be slowly strangled
from the uncertainty and lack of supplies of all kinds, but ultimately
retreat will become impossible. The defending force will find itself
literally in a state of siege under the worst possible conditions. . . .
Thus, in the extended employment of aircraft, we have the means
at hand of compelling a bloodless victory."*

I do not intend to waste my ink in proving that the old
vintage is wrong. To all beings, possessed of any intelligence,

* " Aircraft in Warfare," Lanchester, pp. 187, 188.

The Future of Air Warfare 143

this must be apparent. Instead, I intend showing that though
the new wine of war is perfectly right in asserting that aeroplanes
can destroy infantry like vermin, and devastate whole districts,
it is extremely foolish to use such means of imposing the will of
one nation on another, when non-lethal gases will enable this same
end to be attained with incomparably greater economy of life
and property.

Let us picture to ourselves again the infantry toiling along
the road. The aeroplanes approach ; they do not skim a hundred
feet above the road, but fly at an altitude well outside effective
bullet range. They open their chemical tanks and a fine spray
and fog envelopes the astonished column of men. Suppose that
this gas is a deadly poison, all these men will shortly die ; such
an end is anyhow better than being shot to pieces. Suppose this
gas is a vesicant chemical, like mustard gas, all these men will
be wounded and only one per cent, may die. Cruel though such
an attack is, it is incomparably better than being shot to pieces,
and, if not killed, probably maimed for life. Suppose that this
gas is but an anaesthetic, then the whole column will fall, as
Richardson poetically wrote in 1864, " into a mystic sleep,"
and when its twenty thousand men awake, if they do not find
themselves prisoners, they will have anyhow lost several good
marching hours. What general on earth is going to win decisive
battles, battles which need the most careful assembly and speedy
concentration of troops, if whole divisions and army corps are
going to be put to bed for several hours at a time, two or three
times a day ? Consequently, traditional infantry, the greatest
slaughterers of all, have no place on the future battlefield, not
because they are harmless but because they are absurd ! And
with them must depart cavalry and all horse-drawn guns and
vehicles ; in fact, the whole of the traditional army of 1914
will have become a phantom.

I will now turn to Mr. Lanchester's picture. Why drive the
car of Juggernaut over entire areas ? Why destroy depots,
bridges, railways and workshops in order to strangle, bloodlessly
though it may be, the enemy's troops which are in advance of

144 The Reformation of War

them ? Even to-day a depot drenched with a sneezing mixture
would cease to fulfil its duties, and a mile of roadway or railway
drenched with a strong lachrymator would become impassable
for days on end. More impassable than if the road were smothered
in barbed wire or the rails removed from the permanent way.
Why destroy, when no one really wants to destroy ? When I
ask Mr. Jones to sign an agreement, I do not knife him if he
refuses, for if I do so he may die, and then his signature, my
objective, will be unobtainable. To destroy a nation is to destroy
the very objective of peace ; consequently, the less the destruction
the more complete to the winner is the victory.

Some time back, I made mention of three tactical require-
ments, the first of which was that aircraft protection is to be
sought for in the height the machines can operate from the ground ;
and the second, that the offensive power of aeroplanes depends
to a great extent on the size of the target. I will now examine
the relative value of machine guns, bombs and gas as aircraft
weapons. For a machine gun to be effective the aeroplane
must fly low, which means that it must forgo its natural means
of protection or hamper its mobility and restrict its offensive
power by carrying armour. For a bomb to be effective the target
must be sufficiently large to be hit easily ; the higher the aeroplane
flies the smaller does the target appear to be. Here we are faced
by two difficulties which would seem to be irreconcilable. This
is, however, not so, for liquid gas sprayed from a machine or
dropped in bombs, which burst in the air like shrapnel, will
form a gas cloud which, within certain limits of height, increases
in size in direct ratio to the height of the machines from which
it is dropped on account of the liquid atomizing as it falls through
the air. A bullet or bomb maintains its form until it strikes
the target or the ground ; gas acts otherwise, its form increasing
in size as it nears the ground ; consequently, a gas attack delivered
from a height against a small target is likely to prove a much
more effective attack than one made with bullets and bombs.
Again, if a high wind is blowing, it is not necessary to aim at the
target, but in place to manoeuvre for wind, which an aeroplane

The Future of Air Warfare 145

can always do, and then drop the gas at a distance from the target
and let it drift over it. Yet again, suppose that the traditional
arms — infantry, cavalry, and field guns — are strongly protected
by anti-aircraft artillery and machine guns and the attacking
aeroplanes are afraid to approach them, all that these machines
need do is to fly ahead of the hostile column and drench sections
of the road it is marching along, preferably defiles and road-
junctions, with persistent lethal or non-lethal gasses, which will
compel the traditional arms to wear their respirators continuously.
What will their rate of march then be, seeing that the infantry
carry fifty to sixty pounds of arms and equipment ?

The answer is : at best two or three miles a day, for marching
in respirators, especially in hot weather, is not a practical military
operation. In my opinion, the fact of the case is that the

TRADITIONAL SOLDIER IS DOOMED.

The Influence of Aircraft on Sea Warfare. I will now
turn to the second problem — the influence of aircraft on sea
warfare.

I have already accentuated the fact that the main theory
of all past naval warfare was that fighting at sea is a two dimen-
sional operation. However, during the recent war, two weapons
possessing three dimensional powers came into use — the submarine
and the aeroplane (or seaplane). The first caused consternation,
and the second proved a useful adjunct for purposes of recon-
naissance and observation, but the combined use of these two
weapons was not understood. Combined, their offensive power
may well prove enormous.

What does the traditional naval attack entail — slaughter in
an accentuated form. On land, military units are seldom ex-
terminated, at sea the extermination by drowning of entire
ship's crews is the rule and not the exception. Off Coronel,
the Monmouth and the Good Hope went down with the loss of
all hands, and, of Admiral von Spee's squadron, very few were
saved from the icy waters of the South Atlantic. Of all forms
of warfare, sea fighting is the most prodigal ; in ten minutes
a ship, costing £8,000,000, manned by 1,250 sailors, may be sent

10

146 The Reformation of War

to the bottom. Destruction by maximums is what the naval
mind aims at.

Besides a new vintage of soldiers, there is growing up amongst
us to-day a new school of sailors ; men who, though they are
considering the new means of naval warfare, are still obsessed
by the old idea — destruction. They picture a fleet of Super-
Dreadnoughts pursued by aeroplanes like bears pursued by
bees. High above they swoop and whirl. Thousands of small
smoke bombs are loosed into the air, they whistle downwards,
strike decks and sea, and a minute later all is lost in an immense
cloud of rising smoke. A veritable volcanic eruption has been
projected from heaven. Under cover of this cloud and the loss
of fighting efficiency caused by every sailor having to wear a
respirator, dive down torpedo aircraft, while submarines race over
the surface of the water towards their prey. Immense explosions
throw into the air great columns of water, and vortices of smoke
vibrate upwards. Little by little the smoke clears. Where is that
proud fleet ? It is gone : £100,000,000 worth of steel is swirling
downwards through the depths below, and the surface of the sea
is dotted with thousands of human forms as if they had been
shaken out of some giant caster. There are oaths and groans
and shrieks ; then, with horrible gurglings, one by one they
vanish to join their ships : there is silence and the victory
is won !

What a senseless waste of good steel and better human life.
What an inane and barbaric attempt to gain more prosperous
peace terms than those which existed before the outbreak of
hostilities. Why destroy, why not capture ? Here then is another
picture.

The fleet of Dreadnoughts is steaming in line ahead, preceded
by a cruiser screen. Then again do the aeroplanes approach
and the smoke bombs are showered down. They are toxic,
and the crews are killed and disabled, but the ships are saved.
They are vesicant, and the decks are splashed with mustard gas ;
the ships are saved and the crews are mostly disabled. They
are filled with a colic -producing chemical, and, as the submarines

The Future of Air Warfare 147

once again approach, they emit immense clouds of the same
irritant. Respirators are adjusted, but the chemical penetrates
them as cloud after cloud sweeps over the great vessels. Men
groan, they are doubled up, the crews are demented, gun stations
are abandoned, discipline is cast to the winds, there is panic
and pandemonium, and not a shell or a torpedo is fired. A motor-
boat puts out from a submarine and skims over the water towards
the enemy's flag ship. A rope ladder is fired into the air, it whirls
upwards and its grapnels become engaged with the bridge. A
man in a mask swarms up it, to the bridge he goes ; the commander-
in-chief is squatting in a corner groaning and holding the pit
of his stomach. The man in the mask says : " Hoist the white
flag, or the whole of your fleet will be sunk in five minutes ! '
Up goes the signal of surrender, and a few days later ^100,000,000
worth of steel rides at anchor in a hostile harbour, and thousands
of foreign sailors are eating biscuits and bully behind the wire of
the prisoners' cages. Not a ship has been lost or damaged, and
the casualties have been under five per cent., and most of these
were caused by fright and panic.

The question may now well be asked, how can such an opera-
tion be carried out in the middle of the Pacific ? The answer is not
a difficult one, if the third tactical requirement I laid down is
remembered, namely, that the radius of action of aircraft depends
on refilling with petrol while in the air, and in this case, also, while
on the water.

Aircraft carriers can proceed anywhere a battleship can steam.
They will form the sea bases of the air attack, but they possess
this disadvantage, that to refill, and especially during battle,
aeroplanes will be forced to leave their protective element — the
heights of the air, and descend to dangerous altitudes, and even-
tually to the still more dangerous surface of the sea. Conse-
quently, I believe that airships will be used as air bases, on the
envelopes of which aeroplanes can alight to refill and refit at ease.
In the future, such moving bases should be able to carry a hundred
tons or more of supplies and could, in their turn, replenish their
stock from large supply submarines which, possessing power to

10*

148 The Reformation of War

submerge, would be able, without great danger, to proceed un-
escorted to various rendezvous in the oceans and seas in the
neighbourhood of the theatre of war.

The Independent Action of Aircraft. Whether I have solved
the two preceding problems I must leave it to the reader to
judge. I have purposely avoided detail, and have merely
elaborated an idea which I believe to be possible ; yet, never-
theless, I believe both the above problems and the solutions I
have outlined to be subordinate to the third problem, which I
will now examine.

I have, earlier in this present Chapter, hinted at the possibility
that, in the future, air forces may replace armies and navies.
Actual replacement is, in my opinion, a misconception of the
objective in war. Armies and navies are lethal instruments of
security, but the true object, as I have frequently stated, is not to
kill soldiers or sink ships, but to change a policy which these
soldiers and ships are protecting. If, in the event of war, an air
force can change this policy with less physical destruction than
in the past it has been possible to attain by means of armies and
navies, and this may be the case, then the air force will not absorb
the military purpose of navies and armies, which in nature is
tactical, but will instead establish a new conception of war, a
conception in which naval and military forces will have either no
place at all or one which is subordinate to their present purpose,
and by subordinate I mean the occupation of land and sea after
a moral victory has been won on land by aircraft.

This problem is the most vital military problem of to-day, for,
if my supposition be correct, not only will our present-day armies
and navies be valueless in war, but the immense sums of money
spent on them during peace-time will be squandered.

I have already pointed out that the policy of a nation is
founded on the will of its civil inhabitants, and that the supreme
military power of aircraft is their ability " to hop " over armies
and fleets and attack what is in rear of them. Here then is this
vital problem in brief : can a hostile nation be forced to change
its will by means of an independent aerial attack ?

The Future of Air Warfare 149

That such an attack is possible was visibly demonstrated to
all who inhabited Paris and London during the Great War. At
first, being in nature a novelty, it was dubbed immoral. Is this
assertion, however, true ? Only so far as all warfare may be
classed as immoral, in which case the less the ethical and economic
damage done during a war the more moral will the waging of it
become. This leads us to the following question : will aerial war-
fare in the future, should it supersede land warfare, do more damage
than the damage resulting from land warfare as to-day conceived
and accepted ? I believe that it may, if the object is to obliterate
towns and cities by means of high explosive bombs. I believe
that it will not, if the nerves of the people are attacked by an
offensive directed against their bodies by means of non-lethal
gases. I have shown that the statistics of the gas casualties
suffered by the American Army during the Great War prove that
gas warfare, including the use of deadly gases such as chlorine and
phosgene, is twelve times as humane as bullet and shell warfare.
Further, I have pointed out that the general assertion that gas
warfare is immoral is founded on the fact that nations have not yet
realized that great wars are national wars in which the attack on
the will of the so-called non-combatants is the objective. Further,
I believe that the civilian will fight this idea to the death, because
it is far more comfortable to raise forces of men called soldiers and
let them slaughter each other, not always to the disadvantage of
the civilian, in place of the civilian being attacked directly. In
the past such attacks have been difficult to deliver because warfare
was two dimensional in nature, and where armies moved (on a
plane surface, the crust of the earth) other armies met them and
blocked their way. This condition still holds good for armies and
navies but not for air forces, and as the object of war is to attack
the will of the enemy's people, and as aircraft possess the ability to
avoid armies and navies, is an air force going to be so foolish as to
attack these forces in place of attacking this will ? Whatever the
civilian may desire or squeak for, to put it vulgarly, in the next
great war he is going to be " in the soup," and what kind of soup
will it be ? A pretty hot one !

150 The Reformation of War

I have pointed out in a former Chapter that destruction can be
avoided by the use of non-lethal gases, and that the " political "
danger of such chemicals is that they can incapacitate and terro-
rize without killing. I believe that, in future warfare, great cities,
such as London, will be attacked from the air, and that a fleet of
500 aeroplanes each carrying 500 ten-pound bombs of, let us sup-
pose, mustard gas, might cause 200,000 minor casualties and throw
the whole city into panic within half an hour of their arrival.
Picture, if you can, what the result will be : London for several
days will be one vast raving Bedlam, the hospitals will be stormed,
traffic will cease, the homeless will shriek for help, the city will be
in pandemonium. What of the government at Westminster ?
It will be swept away by an avalanche of terror. Then will the
enemy dictate his terms, which will be grasped at like a straw by a
drowning man. Thus may a war be won in forty-eight hours and
the losses of the winning side may be actually nil !

If a future war can be won at the cost of two or three thousand
of the enemy's men, women and children killed, in place of over
1,000,000 men and incidentally several thousands of women and
children, as was the case in France during the recent war,* surely
an aerial attack is a more humane method than the existing
traditional type. Further, the material damage done will be
insignificant when compared to the damage effected during the
recent war, the cost of which can only approximately be reckoned
in thousands of millions sterling.

Here then is the moral of this Chapter :

In the future, when once the storm clouds of war burst, a
nation dare not depend on gaining time wherein to make good its
deficiencies in preparation. In place it must be ready to act, and
act at once. The only arm which can so act, which can mobilize
and fight within twenty-four hours of an outrage taking place, is
an air force. This liberty of immediate action is, in fact, its

* The total soldiers, sailors and airmen killed during the Great War has been
estimated at between nine and ten millions. The loss among the civil popula-
tions, excluding Russia since the close of 1918, due to killed, diseases directly
attributable to the war, and fall in birth-rate, has been estimated at twenty
millions.

The Future of Air Warfare 151

supreme duty, and, however important co-operation with the navy
and army may be, first and foremost must an air force be prepared
to act alone. The morality of such action is beyond question, for
self-preservation is a human right. To commit felo-de-se by
denying to an air force power of retaliating against the will of the
enemy, is the act of a nation which has become insane.

VIII

THE FUTURE OF LAND WARFARE

THE recoil of a fire arm is in proportion to the force of the
explosion of its charge, and, before buffer springs were
fitted to cannon, this recoil was detrimental to a high rate of fire.
Human ingenuity overcame this difficulty, not by restricting the
recoil, by bolting the gun down to a fixed mounting, but by
utilizing the force of the recoil to reload the piece. The result of
this wonderful economy of energy was to increase the rate of fire
of a field gun from about five rounds to 30 a minute and to enable
a machine gun to deliver sixty times the aimed fire of a breech-
loading rifle.

Like a weapon, every human activity possesses its recoil,
which, as it grows, by degrees transmutes the original force into
something new. This novelty, in its turn, possesses its recoil, so
the process continues, progress moving along its predestined path
impelled forward by the force engendered through the friction and
integration of opposites.

In the last Chapter I peeped beneath the veil of future war in
the air, and, as I fathomed its mysteries, I beheld that traditional
armies and fleets were of things doomed, for I saw that their sand
was running out and that soon they must take their place in the
Valhalla of war. Will they be followed by other soldiers and
other ships ? I think so ; for, potent though the aeroplane is, it
can never become perfect, for perfection does not exist on earth.
In its day it will be eaten up by its own recoil and its powers
digested into something new.

My ignorance, I hope, is not so invincible that I dare to guess
at what the nature of this novelty will be. All I intend to do is

152

The Future of Land Warfare 153

to examine the recoil of aircraft and then attempt to point out its
direction.

What is its nature ? This question demands another : how
can we frustrate the powers of the aeroplane ? We can secure
ourselves from them by going to earth like foxes, but this will not
master them. We can build up a superior air force and destroy
our enemy's air fleet ; this is a common-sense action, but it is one
based on brute force and is, consequently, uneconomical. We
may discover its weaknesses — its lack of power, and by using our
brains, our human cunning, accentuate these weaknesses until they
grow into defects so large that they out -balance its powers.

To understand these defects, even if only to see them, we must
impartially dissect and analyse the powers of its prey — the tradi-
tional arms, for it is their defects which accentuate the power of
aircraft. This I have done sufficiently in the last Chapter in
order to render it unnecessary to consider this subject in much
detail.

In the last Chapter, I pointed out that the three great tactical
requirements of aircraft were (i.) for protection — height of flight ;
(ii.) for offensive power — size of target, and (iii.) for mobility — ■
rapidity of supply. I explained how the use of gas as a weapon
enabled the aeroplane to equate the first two and how airships
might be used as mobile aerodromes. I also pointed out that the
paramount limitation of the aeroplane was that it could not re-
main in the air without the expenditure of energy. This limita-
tion is the Achilles' heel of air warfare. Gravity is, in fact, the
tactical recoil of the machine.

For the aeroplane, what are the main joints in the harness of
present -day armies ? They are the enormous targets they offer ;
the vulnerability of men and horses to bullets and gas ; the slow-
ness of their movement and the dependence of their supplies on
roads, rivers, railways and canals — fixed communications which
from the air can be followed at ease.

What have we got to do ? We must reduce the target, that
is, make it so small that the aeroplane is forced to fly at low alti-
tudes in order to discover it. But, say you, it need not do so,

154 The Reformation of War

because gas is an area and not a target hitter. Well then, we
must completely protect our land forces against this weapon and
compel the aeroplane to risk flying at low altitudes, which will
demand the replacement of gas by bullets. Consequently, we
must protect our troops from bullets as well. Further, we must
enormously increase the speed of our troops. For example, let
us picture to ourselves the power of the British Army had it been
able, in August 1914, to march in one night from Boulogne to the
forest of Crecy, a distance of 50 miles ; lay hidden there ; marched
on the next night to the forest of Mormal, 100 miles away ; lay
hidden there ; marched the following night to the woods in the
vicinity of Waterloo, 75 miles, and then, like a tiger, have sprung
on von Kluck and von Biilow as they advanced westwards from
Liege. But, granted that by some magic power this army had
been supplied with seven-league boots, the roads and railways
would never have permitted of even 100,000 men and their im-
pedimenta moving at this rate. Very well then, in place of crying
" Kamerad ! " we must scrap roads and railways, the traditional
means of movement, and move over areas, that is straight across
country like ships over the sea.

Studious reader, are these problems impossible ? Far from
it, for the tank, and especially the tank of the future, solves them
all!

(i.) It reduces the target, for it does away with great march
columns and immense battle formations.

(ii.) It can be made gas-tight, so completely that even un-
known gases will lose their dread.

(hi.) It can be made bullet-proof, even against bullets of
enormously enhanced powers to existing ones.

(iv.) It can be made to move at 20 miles and more the hour or
200 miles the day for several days without refilling.

(v.) It can move across country, and, consequently, free itself
from the dominion of roads and railways.

It, in my opinion, is the product of the recoil, for it can, by
being made gas-tight, force the aeroplane to fly low and to use

The Future of Land Warfare 155

bullets. Then the tank will reply with bullets and the aeroplane
will armour itself against them. Then the bullets will grow bigger
and the aeroplane armour thicker, and as the tank on the ground
is less affected by gravity than the aeroplane in the air, the tank
will attack, not so much its powers, but its preponderating limita-
tion— its weakness, and in spite of Professor Einstein, the tank
will win !

It may be argued here that, should the aeroplane be unable to
incapacitate the tank crew by means of gas, it will make use of a
gas which will prevent the tank engine from firing, but just as its
crew can live on oxygen or compressed air, when their machine is
rendered gas-tight, so may the energy required to move it be stored
in accumulators which temporarily will do away with the necessity
of combustion. Again, may it be asserted, if the aeroplane be
forced, on account of the thickness of the tank's armour, to replace
machine guns by cannon, that is volume fire by fire which requires
precision, why should not the high explosive bomb be used, for it
would not require a very large one to destroy a machine protected
by armour of even two inches in thickness. In other words, why
should not a tank be attacked in the same manner as I have shown
a battleship may be attacked ? This is not impossible, but the
difficulties are considerable. First of all, I agree that though 20
torpedo carrying aeroplanes may be able, under cover of smoke,
to sink a Dreadnought, it should nevertheless be remembered that
a battleship offers vastly greater hitting area than a tank. Again,
it must not be overlooked that the offensive value of a weapon
is correlated to its cost. Thus, a Super-Dreadnought costs
£8,000,000, and a torpedo carrying aeroplane about £3,000 ;
consequently, the cost of one Super-Dreadnought equals the cost
of 2,700 torpedo carrying aeroplanes. To risk, therefore, 20 or
even 200 of these machines in the destruction of one Super-
Dreadnought is an economical operation. Not only is a tank a
much smaller target to hit than a Super-Dreadnought, but its
cost should not exceed £6,000, or the cost of two torpedo carrying
aeroplanes. Would two be sufficient for its destruction, seeing
that a tank can so completely cover itself with smoke that the two

156 The Reformation of War

aeroplanes would have to descend within a few feet of the ground
in order to aim their bombs, and, while diving into the smoke to
nose for their prey, would be met by an upwards spray of large
calibre bullets or possibly small calibre gas shells, which would
penetrate an inch of armour at 500 to 1,000 feet range ? If two
aeroplanes be insufficient, the addition of others at once renders
the attack uneconomical ; that is to say : if it costs more to destroy
a tank by aeroplanes than the tank is worth, for equal sums of
money more tanks than aeroplanes can be built ; consequently,
with the increase in the production of tanks is decreased the net
value of aeroplanes as a means of destroying them. Finally it
may be asserted that one aeroplane dropping a shower of medium-
sized bombs will be sufficient to destroy the tank. This assertion
has, however, no foundation in past experience. In the recent
war no single tank was ever hit by an aeroplane bomb. But, say
you, aeroplane bombing was still in its infancy. I agree, but
must add that so was the tank. As a matter of fact, in 1918, the
aeroplane was 15 years old and the tank only two. For one aero-
plane, carrying, let us suppose, 20 anti-tank bombs, to hit a tank
moving at 20 if not 30 miles the hour under a pall of smoke, would
appear to me to be almost as difficult as to attempt, in a London
fog, to hit a snipe with buckshot.

Having now dealt, at some length, with the influence of the
tank on the aeroplane through the power it possesses to hit at
that Achilles' heel of the air — gravity, I will turn from the aeroplane
to the traditional arms of to-day and examine the influence the
tank will exert on their transformation.

From what has gone before, it may seem unnecessary to do
this, for, if it be accepted, as it certainly is not by the traditional
school, that in the future aeroplanes are likely with impunity to
destroy infantry, cavalry and gunners, and, in all probability, will
only be able to destroy tanks with great difficulty, it would appear
to be a common-sense action to replace the traditional arms by
tanks. Of course it would be a common-sense action, but, of all
reasons, this is the last one which will persuade the traditional
school to accept it, since their theory of war is not founded on

The Future of Land Warfare 157

common-sense but on custom, or the imitation of actions, the
utility of which is long dead and buried and gone to dust. I will,
therefore, in order to supply the reader with the ammunition of
argument, consider the power of tanks against the traditional
arms, and the restriction of their power when attached to them.
I will now show that the tank of the near future is likely to be
as superior to the traditional arms as a modern destroyer is to a
British coracle, and that to link the traditional arms to tanks
will be as uneconomical as linking sailing frigates to a squadron of
battle cruisers.

In Chapter V., I briefly outlined the general influence of tanks
on the tactics of the Great War, that is on traditional fighting, and,
in spite of the fact that soldiers are still found who believe that
the tank was merely a war freak,* I will assume that the reader is a
sane civilian who will not fall into a frenzy if I assume that tanks
will play an important part in future wars. I will lay down,
therefore, the following assumption : at some future date two
armies meet in battle, each possesses infantry, cavalry and artillery
as equipped to-day and two types of tanks — a light cavalry tank
possessing a speed of 25 miles the hour, and a heavily-armoured
infantry tank with a speed of 15 miles the hour. What will
happen ?

I will assume forthwith, if the lessons of the recent war are of
any value, and if human nature remain what it is, that, by the
time the two armies are within striking distance, the infantry will
be in rear of the tanks and the artillery in rear of the infantry.
Tank will, consequently, engage tank, and a battle for tank supre-
macy will result. As cavalry cannot take part in this battle,
unless it be employed in galloping towards the hostile machines
and scattering land mines in their path, an operation which might
more efficiently be carried out by a mine-laying tank or by an
aeroplane, the cavalry tanks will be detached from the arm they

* " Possibilities of the Next War," Major-General Sir Louis C. Jackson,
K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G. (R.U.S.I. Journal, vol. lxv., February, 1920) : "The tank
proper was a freak. The circumstances which called it into existence were
exceptional and are not likely to recur. If they do they can be dealt with by
other means " (p. 74). These other means are not mentioned ! What are they ?

158 The Reformation of War

are protecting and will manoeuvre behind the infantry tanks ready
to move forward should the enemy's tank front be pierced, or
preparatory to attacking this front in flank.

The question now arises, what can the infantry do ? These
troops can do nothing outside playing the part of interested
spectators. What can the gunners do ? They can do next to
nothing, for, being distant from the field of action, upon which in
a minute a tank may have changed its position by a quarter of a
mile, they dare not promiscuously bombard any area ; besides,
in order to fire at all, they will generally have to employ direct
laying, which, in most cases, will require them to be either with,
or in advance of, the infantry. In such positions, as the gunners,
in order to protect themselves, cannot lie flat like infantry, their
pieces will soon be silenced by hostile machine gun fire.

I will now carry the battle to its next stage. One side will
gain tank supremacy and the shattered remnants of the other
side will retire. As the pursuit will be rapid — at from ten to
twenty miles the hour — the defeated tanks can either retire with
their infantry, which delaying them will jeopardize their retreat,
or else abandon their infantry and let them be destroyed. Falling
back on their artillery, what can the gunners do ? They cannot
move their guns without their horses, which are very vulnerable
to fire, and they cannot fire them while in movement. They must
therefore, remain stationary and, if the ground in front of the
guns be an obstacle to tank movement, they may possibly hold
up the enemy's infantry machines, which, nevertheless, if they
advance behind a smoke cloud, will be very difficult targets to hit.
Meanwhile, the enemy's cavalry tanks will be racing round the
artillery flanks in order to attack in rear the guns, wagon parks,
teams and command headquarters. We see, therefore, that, even
if the artillery can halt the hostile infantry machines, in nine
cases out of ten the guns are likely to be destroyed in a few hours.
The only arm which will be able to save itself from destruction is
the cavalry, not by charging the enemy, but by galloping off the
field.

In the main this picture is not overdrawn, because to-day

The Future of Land Warfare 159

tanks exist which can move at twenty-five miles an hour. True,
they are not reliable — neither was the motor-car in 1901, nor the
aeroplane in 1909 — yet the tank to-day is as old as these two
means of movement were twenty-two and fourteen years ago ;
consequently, there is no reason why reliability should not be
accomplished within a few years of to-day. Are existing cavalry,
artillery and infantry then doomed to extinction ? Yes, and
certainly as regards the former two, their death will be followed
by their resurrection. I will examine this assertion.

No operation in war can have been more terrible and awe-
inspiring than that of a massed cavalry charge — a blare of trum-
pets, the thunder of hoofs, and the flash of steel. When such
operations were possible, only the steadiest infantry could with-
stand the assault, and even the best troops, once they had been
pounded by shot and shell, frequently succumbed to the cavalry
charge. Of all operations in war it was the most rapid and the
most effective, for though its killing power was seldom as great
as that of infantry, its disorganizing and demoralizing power
was terrific.

During the recent war, any side which could have made use
of its cavalry, as Alexander or Frederick the Great did, would
have shortened the war by years, and this, I believe, the future
will prove, for so essential to land war is the cavalry charge that
it must be reinstated ; besides, the problem is so simple. Picture
a brigade of tanks moving at thirty miles an hour charging
through an infantry division. What can the infantry do ? What
can the gunners do ? A few tanks will be destroyed, but this is
all. As long as cavalry depend on the horse, the charge is dead ;
only can it be revived by replacing the horse by the tank ; then,
against an unarmoured enemy, the result is certain.

But has not present-day cavalry still a part to play in the
initial and final stages of battle — reconnaissance and the pursuit ?
None, if economy of time is of any value in war. A light scout
tank, with a maximum speed of thirty miles an hour and a mean
speed of fifteen miles, can easily travel one hundred and fifty miles
in a day"; with a few exceptions, such as narrow mountain tracks

160 The Reformation of War

and very thick woods, a machine of this nature can pass over all
ground negotiable by a horse and can traverse many obstacles
which a horse cannot look at. It can lie up hidden for days if
needs be without consuming petrol ; it can carry its own supplies
for a long period, and its crew have little to fear from hostile
cavalry or francs-tireurs. It possesses so many advantages over
the horse, and so few disadvantages, that its adoption for purposes
of reconnaissance is as near a certainty as can be predicted.

There are two types of pursuit ; the first against a retiring
enemy, the second against a routed foe. Against the first
cavalry can do no more than annoy ; against the second their
use is great, because they can move at three or four times the
pace of infantry in flight. Tanks will move, however, at twice
the pace of cavalry and will carry their own protection ; further,
at night-time, under the rays of their searchlights, they will be
able to carry on the chase. Onwards they will go, rousing hostile
bivouacs by the shrieks of their sirens, flashing their search-
lights along hedgerows, over fields and through villages ; they
will reduce the enemy to a demented mob. Thus will they destroy
his moral, and his soldiers will cease to be fighting men. Cavalry
can do all this and more, if they will exchange flesh for steel.
The idea is the same, the means of movement is alone different.

I will now turn to artillery. A fortress is merely an artillery
emplacement. If, in the past, it had been possible to move
fortresses in open warfare, this would have been done. In
fact, inihe days of Alexander and Caesar it was done, for fortresses
were made of wood, and could be moved slowly over the ground
by means of rollers. To-day this is no longer practical since
reinforced concrete has replaced wood. Yet, in its very nature,
the tank is a mobile strong point, a moving bullet-proof box
in which is mounted a gun.

A field gun, in the open, can be attacked by bullet, shell,
gas, or bomb, and during such attacks it can seldom move.
Because of the vulnerability of artillery to bullets, the normal
position of the guns is in rear of the infant^, and if not so pro-
tected, then must an escort be provided ; that is to say, infantry

The Future of Land Warfare 161

and cavalry must be immobilized in order to secure the gun
against infantry and cavalry attack. If the guns are attacked
by tanks, this escort is useless ; if attacked from the air the
gunners and their teams will probably suffer heavy casualties ;
further, no certain protection can be provided against gas. All
these difficulties can be more than overcome by mounting the
field gun in a tank.

Let us picture to ourselves the following weapon. A tank
which can move at least fifteen miles an hour, and which, when
necessary, can be rendered gas-proof. In it is mounted a field
gun, an anti-aircraft machine gun, and two ordinary machine
guns. What can such a weapon do ? It can move at twice
the speed of a horse-drawn gun, it can operate behind infantry,
with infantry, in front of infantry, or on the flanks of infantry.
It can render itself gas-tight, can defy all aeroplane bullets, can
attack aeroplanes, and can hide itself from them by means of
smoke. It can change its position when attacked, can fire while
in movement, and does not require an escort. It has nothing to
fear from infantry, nothing from cavalry, little from a horse-drawn
field gun, and, if attacked by fast moving tanks, it has at least a
chance of escape. It is in fact a movable fortress, which,
if rendered floatable, may virtually become a small man-of-war.
If, in the next war, the gunner wishes to pull his weight, then he
also must get into a tank.

I will now turn to the last of the arms of traditional armies
namely, the infantry. First of all, it should be realized that,
even though infantry may still be " the queen of battles," for
eight hundred years during the Christian era foot troops were
mere pawns in the game. When the armoured knight ruled the
battlefield, infantry was employed merely to garrison castles,
or to hold tactical points such as swamps, forests and hill-tops,
that is, in localities in which the knights could not move. I
believe that the armoured tank is going to create a tactical
condition similar to that created in the past by these armoured
horsemen, and that, in the near future, infantry, if they exist,
will only continue to do so as police and the defenders of positions

ii

162 The Reformation of War

— rail-heads, bridge-heads, workshops and supply magazines.
As this is a point which is likely to be hotly debated, I will trace
the evolution of this assumption.

To provide infantry with an escort of tanks detached from the
main force of these machines is no guarantee that, in battle,
should the tank versus tank engagement be likely to fail, any
but a totally incapable commander will not at once withdraw
all these protective machines in order to support his tanks, for
on their success will depend victory or defeat. Assuming that
there will be a capable commander, his initiative can, of course,
be restricted by supplying him with protective tanks the speed
of which does not exceed the pace of infantry. Such a restriction
is, however, absurd ; it not only violates the principle of the
offensive, but these slow machines will be no match against the
faster hostile ones.

Another solution must be tried. The infantry may be
equipped with a heavy machine gun, which will weigh seven times
the weight of a rifle, and, therefore, an infantryman will not be
able to carry it. It will have to be mounted on a transporter,
and, as off this machine it will be immobile and on it unprotected,
the first thing its crew will ask for is protection by armour. We
are once again back to the tank, and an indifferent one at that,
for the effective range of the tank gun against a lightly armoured
tank is far greater than that of a heavy machine gun against
a heavily armoured machine. In addition to this objection,
there is nothing to prevent the heavier tank being equipped
with a heavy machine gun as its in-fighting weapon.

As it would appear that the heavy machine gun will not
fulfil the purpose for which it is intended, it would seem pre-
ferable to give infantry a high velocity gun such as the tank
six-pounder. If this be done, the evolution will be the same as in
the case of the heavy machine gun. Starting on its wheels, it
will end in a small six-pounder tank, and, if it be found to be an
efficient tank destroyer, then the proper place for it is in the tank
battle and not behind it.

I consider that the main deduction to be made from the

The Future of Land Warfare 163

above is that, whatever offensive weapon is given to the infantry,
it will have first to be motorized ; secondly, armoured ; and
thirdly, will be taken away from these troops at all critical periods
— periods when it is most required by them. If this be a correct
judgment, then we must seek for a solution of this problem in
a purely defensive weapon, that is to say a weapon which cannot
be used when in movement. Such a weapon is the land-mine,
which, to hark back to mediaeval warfare, will take the place
of the old-fashioned moat. It may, therefore, be predicted that
tank mine-layers will accompany future infantry, siege artillery
and the administrative services. In order to keep in the vicinity
of the battle, though always at a safe distance from the actual
front, the infantry and administrative troops will be carried
forward in cross-country transporters, the descendants of the
present motor-bus. These transporters will be lightly armoured
and constructed so that they may be made gas-proof, and endowed
with a sufficient speed to enable them to escape from their strong-
holds should the tank mine-sweepers, which tank mine-layers
will render necessary, succeed in clearing a way through the mine-
fields. Lastly, as warfare is likely to become more and more
mobile in nature, the slow digging hand spade will be replaced
by the fast digging cross-country trench digger, so that, when
halted, the infantry and their transporters will be able to seek
cover by ground in order to protect themselves from aircraft
attack.

From the above we may predict that the tank will rapidly
revolutionize existing modes of warfare. Cavalry is likely to
disappear, except perhaps as mounted police ; infantry may
become the " queen of fortresses," but on the battlefield the
rule of this monarch is rapidly drawing to an end, for without
offensive power this queen is bereft of her crown. Artillery
will become doubly important, and, as speed is added to this
arm, the old naval struggle between gun and armour will find its
counterpart on land. Then will the infantry tank, as we know
it to-day, disappear and be replaced by the heavy gunned and
strongly armoured land battleship — the artillery of the future :

164 The Reformation of War

then will the cavalry tank, relying on less armour and greater
speed, become the battle cruiser. Numerous auxiliary machines
may be built, but, as long as armies are obsessed by the idea of
killing, I believe that, on these two types, the land battles of
the future will be founded, battles which will be fought after the
fashion of Alexander — the hoplites disorganizing and the cata-
phracti annihilating the enemy.

Before depicting a battle between these armoured packets
of men, I will examine how they can be supplied before, during
and after battle, for, in the future, as in the past, so long as
humanity wars, so long will armies continue to march on their
stomachs.

In war, the chief concern of the soldier is not to kill, but to
live. He fixes his eyes on the communications of the army
to which he belongs, and is terrified if they are threatened by
the enemy. Why is this ? Because on their integrity depends
the supply of his bread, beer and beef. It is mainly for this
reason that communications play so important a part in land
warfare. In naval warfare they are also important, but in a
smaller degree, for, while the average road is only thirty to
forty feet wide, the sea offers a vast area which can be traversed
in four directions in place of two. If it were possible to move
armies as we move ships, we should entirely revolutionize the art
of war. Curious to relate we can do this, for, I have shown
that, not only must infantry get into tanks, but gunners and
troopers must do the same, and, if all these arms do get into tanks,
it would be truly a comic organization should, for means of
movement, their administrative services continue to depend on
the horse. Naturally they will not do so, but will equip them
selves with cross-country tractors and transporters. Wheels will
disappear from lorries, cookers, and limbered vehicles, and
tracks will replace them.

What shall we then see ? Armies liberated from roads ;
armies ceasing to move like gigantic human serpents ; armies
which can move deployed if their commanders so wish it, with
all their necessary supply vehicles immediately in rear of them,

The Future of Land Warfare 165

and not at the tails of columns a day's march in length. The
administrative personnel and garrison troops can be carried in
cross-country omnibuses ; the fighting troops can be supplied
not only with the munitions of war, but with tents, hot meals,
cool drinks, bedding and blankets.

Roads, though they have proved a strategical blessing, have
frequently proved a tactical curse. In the past, in roadless
countries, the soldier has often fared but little better than a
neolithic savage, and in well-roaded ones, such as Flanders,
scarcely as well as the inhabitants of a slum, and all because
wheeled vehicles demand roads, and where roads do not exist
pack animals or coolies alone can be used ; and, where they do,
they seldom permit of more than two streams of vehicles passing
along them simultaneously, and then only if they are clear of
troops. The tank carries its own roadway in its tracks ; it does
not, therefore, need a road ; it can, therefore, look upon a road or
roadless country with unconcern, and in this indifference, without
probing very deep, we may discover an entirely new epoch in
the art of war — the epoch of roadless tactics.

When we contemplate the wars of the future, the recent
war with its trenches and its canteens will appear a very leisurely
affair. There will be no ten days' mobilization, and less getting
in and out of trains, for war in the air will force pace upon the
earth. There will be no time to select and prepare landing-places,
or to take over some friendly harbour ; besides the obvious
landing points will have been marked down by the enemy, and will
be drenched with persistent gases long before we reach them.
Further than this, we do not want the enemy to know where we
are going, for, as surprise is always the most powerful of weapons,
we wish to take him unawares, suddenly springing at his throat.
Therefore, when the crash comes, we may expect to see our
tank army of the future mobilize in a few hours and make for the
coast, either to take to the water or to crawl on to tank carrying
ships, which, under cover of darkness, will speed across the sea
or possibly under it. These ships will make for some prearranged
point, perhaps a desolate stretch of sand dunes, where the tanks

166 The Reformation of War

will either crawl ashore or take to the water from the ships and
swim towards the land.

As machines of great size will be difficult to hide, smoke
clouds will be formed to cover them ; meanwhile numerous
other smoke clouds will be created so that the enemy's aero-
planes may be misled. Of a hundred such clouds, perhaps
only two or three will cover tank forces, and then, at a given
hour, all the clouds will move towards the frontiers, for they
will be emitted by cross-country machines, which will leave
a spoor behind them still further to bewilder the enemy's air-
men. Presently the clouds will coalesce into one vast expanse
of smoke, which, like a gigantic storm cloud, will roll over the
enemy's land. Only when it bursts, when the thunder of the
guns is heard, and the flame-projecting tanks advance on their
prey, spouting forth sheets of fire, like tongues of lightning,
will the enemy discover which parts of the typhoon are alive.
It may then be too late for him to manoeuvre his own tank army
to meet the invader, or, if he has gauged their position correctly,
then will a battle of mechanical monsters take place, each
monster controlled by a tiny brain — its crew, upon the pluck
and determination of which, even more so than in the past,
will victory depend, for the machine is, after all, but the weapon
of man ; once a sword, to-day a rifle, and to-morrow a tank.

Rolling forward on its tracks, the war of the future will
resemble a conflict of mobile fortresses, followed by moving
supply dumps. The skeleton of the battle will be as hereto-
fore ; there will be the search, the grip, the clinch and the over-
throw, but on this skeleton will be built up muscles of steel.
Man will remain the same, a cunning human creature ; his
means of movement, his weapons and his methods of protection
will alone have changed. If mechanically both sides are equal,
then, on the valour, obedience and sell-sacrifice of the soldier
will victory depend. But if one side relies on these virtues
alone, and neglects to safeguard them by the most powerful
weapons obtainable, then will they be of little value, as little
as all the valour of the Soudanese was at Omdurman. Moral

The Future of Land Warfare 167

is the most precious virtue which a soldier can possess, and as
we value it so must we protect it.

In the van of the battle of the future may we watch the
scout tanks, the light cavalry of the army, retiring before the
side which has gained the initiative, falling back on their
heavier machines, or away from them to a flank to draw the
enemy into a false position. Wireless reports will be sent back
from the air fleet and telephoned on from the flag tank to the
squadron leaders, which will manoeuvre for ground, for position,
for light and for wind. Great clouds of smoke will roll over the
battlefield, under cover of which mine-laying tanks will move
forward to deny to the enemy's machines certain tactical posi-
tions, or in the hope that, by a calculated retirement, they
may be induced to attempt to advance across them. Destroyer
tanks will dart forward to attack the huge artillery machines,
the capital ships of the battlefield, and succeed or be driven
back by their like. Then, at length, will the two sides clinch,
and, amidst the whirl of smoke and gas, the thunder of the
guns and the crash of steel, will one human being impose the
will of his army on that of his antagonist. Lastly, the pursuit,
the roaring of engines and the race to destroy.

The battles of the future may be something like this, or
even something still more different from the conflicts of the
recent war. Different they will be ; so different, when it is
realized that we are now entering a new epoch in warfare, that
no man can, with any semblance of certainty, say that the
above picture is impossible. In it infantry, cavalry and
artillery, as they are armed, mounted, or moved to-day, have
no place — none ! It is impossible even to imagine them
partaking in such a struggle ; as well pit a fleet of coracles,
triremes and galleys against destroyers, submarines and Dread-
noughts, as to pit the frail arms of to-day against their more
powerful descendants. All things material change, but one thing
immaterial will remain constant — the will to win, the soul
within the machine.

How different may the battle be ; let us for a moment think,

168 The Reformation of War

and then offer one more speculation. The battle of machines,
is this the ultimate goal in warfare ? I do not think so, for
a machine is but a means of waging war, a tool whereby men
seek to impose their will upon each other. Once the machine
was a bow and arrow ; to-day it is a rifle or a machine gun carried
on a mounting called man ; to-morrow it may be an aeroplane
or a tank. Yet, whatever it be, it is the will and understanding
of man which the machine forces man to accept. Just as in a
telephone the vibrations of the voice are transmitted by an
inaudible current of electricity, so also in war is the silent will
of one nation transmitted to its antagonist by means of roaring
tools. Tools change, and though in the past the soldier has
generally been no designer, in the future he must become one
if he is to continue to impose his will on his enemy.

What does this mean ? It means that invention is an
important branch of strategy. It means that we must never
be content with what we have ; without halt we must ever-
lastingly seek for something better. If a tool can be found, or
designed, against which the enemy possesses no immediate pro-
tection, then this tool alone may constitute ninety-nine per
cent, of victory, even if every general in the enemy's army is
as cunning as Napoleon, and every private soldier as brave as
Marshal Ney.

For a moment, I will turn back to the battle of machines.
The two great mechanical forces surge forward over the land,
while high above in the air another terrific conflict is being waged.
Suddenly the whole of the machines of one side stand stock
still, and the whole of the aeroplanes of this same side swoop
down to earth and crash upon the ground. Would not this
mean ninety-nine per cent, of victory to the side which could
continue to move and fly ? It would mean more, it would be vic-
tory itself. But how could such a catastrophe take place ? The
answer is simple. The victorious side, all unknown to the
enemy, has discovered how to derange, by means of etheric
waves, the mechanism of the hostile tanks and aeroplanes.
Perhaps the antidote is but a leaden box or a glass container

The Future of Land Warfare 169

costing a few shillings, which could be turned out by the tens
of thousands in a few days. What does this matter, so long
as the enemy does not possess it, for in twenty seconds his entire
army will be immobilized by perhaps one man !

Does this mean that tanks and aeroplanes are useless, and
should, consequently, be scrapped ? Certainly, if the means
of safeguarding them are of as little value as a woollen jacket
against a bullet ; otherwise, no ! It means this : that nothing
devised by human brains is perfect, there is ever a recoil, there
is always room for improvement, and that side which gains
supremacy in invention and design is the side which is going
to win the next war. In the past, wars have frequently been
decided by man-power ; in the future they will almost certainly
be decided by machine-power, begotten of brain-power — possibly
in a single test-tube may be discovered the secret of the conquest
of the world !

IX

THE FUTURE OF SEA WARFARE

IN this Chapter I will first recapitulate what has gone before,
so that the reader, before considering the future of sea
warfare, may be certain of his starting-point. In Chapters
IV. and V., I examined the nature of the Great War and
its tendencies, and I showed, how out of the cavern of brute-
force timorously crept forth, like a wee mouse, the idea of the
moral attack. Then in Chapters VI. and VII., I examined the
instruments of this attack — gas, which would humanize the
bullet, and aircraft, which would transport gas and, by directing
it against the will of a nation, reduce the horrors of bloodshed
and destruction. Thus were opened before us the portals of
a warlike Eden ; yet, like Eden of old, within dwelt the serpent
closely twined around the ancient trunk of the tree of life,
whose sap is drawn from the blood of warriors and whose ever
falling leaves are battles lost. In Chapter VIII., the snake
moved its coils, unwound itself, and offering to us the gas-proof
tank, seduced us from the narrow path which leads to the true
objective of war. Like Adam, we eat of the fruit of death
and are fallen ; yet without this fall there can be no redemption,
and, as good is the recoil of evil, so shall we discover that, out
of the horrific struggle of monstrous machines, nations may
advance yet one march further towards the bloodless battle-
fields of the future.

Studious reader, remember ever that we can only progress
from evil to good, and that, as the good in humanity grows old,
in its perfection is begotten its corruption, within which is con-
ceived its redemption. I have shown how, by gas and air,

170

The Future of Sea Warfare 171

warfare may be humanized, and how, by petrol and steel, it
may become re-brutalized. But, pause before you deliver judg-
ment, for the battle of petrol-driven steel, appalling as it may
seem, is not so brutal as the battle of blood-driven muscle.
Why is this ? I will explain.

Time is the controlling factor in war, it is the urge of armies.
The more rapid the assembly, the quicker the battle ; the quicker
the battle, the more speedy the victory, and victory is the postern
of peace. Petrol economizes time in war, caterpillar tracks or
aircraft propellers economize space. Economy in time and
space are the sire and dam of surprise, and surprise is the true
sword of victory.

Power to move in all directions introduces into strategy
and tactics a new meaning, which will demand a higher type
of mind than has ever been required in past wars. The more
cunning this mind becomes, the more deadly will be the result
of its overthrow. Heretofore, war minds were small and war
bodies were big ; armies were like certain reptiles — their brain
could, on occasion, be actually removed without influencing
the wrigglings of their bodies. War is fast outgrowing the
reptilian stage, and, when mind expands, man will realize
what the objective of war demands. Then will the desire of the
soldier be to avoid rather than meet the army of his adversary,
so that in place he may be free to attack the will and nerves
of the hostile nation. Frequently, he will not be able to do
so, nevertheless, he must never lose sight of his main objective,
for, as in war, moral is to the physical as three to one, so is a
successful moral attack not only three but thirty, possibly three
hundred, times as effective as a physical onslaught.

While battles are raging in the air, battles which may be
won in hours or days in place of months or years, on land must
an army not only seek out the enemy, but must race towards
his vitals — his aerodromes, dockyards, chemical factories,
workshops and seats of government. Undoubtedly will the
enemy attempt to protect these by means of his military forces,
and undoubtedly will his adversary attempt to hack his

172 The Reformation of War

shield to pieces, and, if it be shattered, what then ? A with-
drawal followed by reconstruction ? No ; for, within a few years,
it will be possible for a mechanical army to sweep from the
Seine to the Vistula in seven days.

If the shield is, however, not hacked to pieces, what shall
we see ? While the axe is being wielded against it, aircraft,
like arrows, will speed over it ; and fast moving tank forces,
like javelins, will shiver past its flanks, and these will transfix
the civil brains of the enemy with terror. Which side will
outlast the other, this has always been a vital question in war ?
In the recent war, over four years were required wherein to
undermine the German moral ; in the days of Napoleon it
took twenty-two years to undermine that of the French. In
the recent war, had the Germans won the battle of the Marne,
the war might have been won in six weeks, and, be it well re-
membered, the German muscle-moving armies took four weeks
to cover the 150 miles which separates Liege from the outskirts
of Paris. To-day, the aeroplane can cover this distance in one
hour, and, in a few years to come, a tank will be able to accom-
plish this journey in one day. Bearing in mind such rapidity
of movement, it becomes almost a certainty that, in the next
great war, the endurance of civil moral will be in direct propor-
tion to the speed of the war machines used ; consequently,
the duration of wars will be short, and, as I will now show,
the power which can command the seas is the power which will
hold the winning card.

Sea warfare, like land or air warfare, is but a means towards
an end, and as man is a terrestrial animal and not an aquatic
or aerial beast, he lives and breeds on the land, and over ninety
per cent. of his activities are connected with the land ; consequently,
of all the military means employed by a nation to impose its will
on another, sea warfare is the least direct.

The military obj ective is attained through two great activities :
liberty of movement and liberty of action. The first I will call
the strategical objective and the second the tactical. The aim
of the first is to place an armed force in such a position that it

The Future of Sea Warfare 178

may attain the second — namely, victory, at the lowest cost in men,
money, material and honour. Normally, victory is to be sought
on land, because man primarily belongs to the earth. In primitive
times this condition was absolute, but, as civilization advanced,
nations became more and more dependent on each other's efforts
for supply of food, clothing and other commodities, with the
result that sea roads were added to land roads and highly organized
fleets to armies. The first, to-day, constitute the great strategical
forces, especially in maritime powers, and the second the great
tactical forces.

As the military policy of a virile nation is to impose its will
on its antagonist, the sooner it can do so the less commercial
capital will it expend, and the less disorganization of existing
markets, whether in its own hands or in those of its enemies and
allies or neutrals, will result.

In wars originating through trade competition, the object
is visibly not to kill, wound, or plunder the enemy, but simply
to persuade him, by both moral and physical force, that acceptance
of this policy will prove more profitable than its refusal ; for to
kill, wound and plunder is to destroy or debilitate a future buyer
— it is, in fact, a direct attack on the competitive impulse which
is the foundation of prosperity.

I have already shown that the most rapid method of enforcing
a policy is not to destroy but to capture, morally and physically,
an enemy's government and so compel it to agree — a man pinned
down with a pistol pointed at his head does not argue. Enemy
governments, being land organizations, must be captured on land.
In order to prevent so dire a fate they protect themselves by
armies, and, if the countries they govern possess sea coasts,
they raise navies in order to protect their communications with
other countries and so prevent the invasion of their territories,
or to assist in their invading those of their enemies. If we
carry this analysis a little further we shall find that fleets exist
for four primary purposes in war :

(i.) To protect the transportation of armies, as took place

174 The Reformation of War

in the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War and the

Great War of 1914-1918.
(ii.) To compel an enemy to disperse his main army by

landing or by threatening to land troops, such as the

landings in Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular

War, and the Gallipoli, Salonika and Archangel landings

during the Great War.
(iii.) To protect the transportation of supplies, as took place

in the Dutch Wars of the seventeenth century, the

Napoleonic Wars and the Great War.
(iv.) To impede or completely prevent supplies of all natures

being shipped to the enemy's country, as was attempted

during the Dutch Wars, the American Civil War and the

Great War.

The four primary purposes of a fleet may be condensed into
two — namely, the military purpose of a fleet and the economic
purpose, which together may be expressed in one term : " Com-
mand of the Sea," or the power of controlling movement over
the water in order to maintain and secure national policy, which
in its highest form, is survival with prosperity, honour and con-
tentment.

As the ultimate aim of a fleet is to gain or maintain command
of the sea — that is, liberty of movement and action on the water —
consequently, its object is to clear the sea of all hostile ships,
either by sinking or blockading them, and until this objective
has been gained, the purposes of a fleet cannot, without grave
risk, be accomplished.

For any nation to possess complete freedom of the sea, it
is necessary for its fleet to be in a position to guarantee its military
and economic purposes. Before the invention of the submarine
this was difficult enough, even when surface superiority was most
marked, as was the case with the British Fleet from 1806 to 1815,
during which period, nevertheless, hundreds of merchantmen
were yearly sunk or captured by the enemy. Since the intro-
duction of the submarine, a complete guarantee or anything

The Future of Sea Warfare 175

approaching secure command is no longer possible ; conse-
quently, the question which should now be perplexing naval
brains is not that of battleships versus submarines, or vice versa,
but rather, what constitutes the intrinsic values of these two
types of vessels in the maintenance of command of the sea against
all prospective enemies ?

It must first of all be realized that the submersible vessel
has introduced a third dimensional movement into the art of
naval warfare, which differs fundamentally from third dimen-
sional means of movement in the air, in that, while the air offers
no direct protection to aircraft, water offers a more complete
protection to the submarine than does a trench to a soldier.
A submarine, in fact, possesses the power to enter her " dug-
out," at most points on the surface of the sea, at will, and thus
protect herself from hostile attack, but while submerged she
possesses no more offensive power than does the soldier in his
underground shelter. The main characteristic of the submarine
is, in fact, her power to evade a fight and not her power to seek
combat on equal terms with surface craft.

This power of evasion introduces a new problem into naval
warfare. On the surface, the submarine in fighting power is
inferior to the surface warships, because, at present, she cannot
give the same number of blows or withstand an equal hammering,
but by diving she can normally avoid, even at close quarters,
receiving any blows at all. Though this protective power
possessed by the submarine has greatly influenced the economic
purpose of a fleet, because on the surface the submarine is far
more powerful offensively than an armed merchantman, up to
the present this power has had little influence on the military
purpose of a fleet, because this purpose is still accomplished on
the surface, and on the surface her power of evasion is lost.
If, however, this military purpose could be accomplished under
the surface, surface craft would be all but impotent to prevent
it. Such a possibility would reduce the actions of a fleet to that
of commerce protection, surface craft becoming but mere escorts
to merchant vessels.

176 The Reformation of War

Before examining this stupendous possibility, which, if feasible,
will revolutionize the whole outlook of naval warfare, I intend
returning to the question of surprise, which I have called — the
true sword of victory.

In the past, sea power, when properly used, has enabled in-
numerable surprisals to be effected, such as the landing of Sir
John Moore in Portugal in 1809 and the Japanese at Chemulpo
in 1904. These surprisals have, however, normally demanded
one condition — command of the surface of the seas, and, in order
to gain this command, the enemy's fleet has either to be destroyed
or blockaded. In the days of sailing ships temporary command
frequently sufficed. In 1805, Napoleon hoped to gain such a
condition, by enticing Nelson and his ships away from the English
Channel to the West Indies. Since the introduction of steamships,
this temporary ability to evade, and so attack the will of a hostile
nation overseas, has become more and more difficult, until,
to-day, however perfect the surface command may be, as long
as the enemy possesses a few submarines, not necessarily
supremacy in submarines, such operations become exceedingly
hazardous.

I have already shown in Chapter VII. the extreme danger
that large battleships will run if they are attacked simultaneously
by submarines and aircraft. Day by day, evidence is accumu-
lating to show that the age of the present naval Brontosaur is
nearing its end. For ten or fifteen years, these immense and
costly ships, veritable Titans of brute-force, may continue, but
their dotage is in view, because the objective in naval warfare
is not to sink steel, but to impose a policy on the enemy. Suppos-
ing, however, that I am wrong and that a Super-Super-Dread-
nought will be able to keep afloat in face of a dual three-dimen-
sional attack, even then will not the submarine greatly restrict
her activities ?

"As an engine of destruction," writes Admiral Daveluy,
" the submarine is admirable, because — a fact unique in history
— she does not come under the law of numbers by reason of her
invisibility : one unit of small tonnage can attack enemy's forces,

The Future of Sea Warfare 177

no matter how numerous or powerful."* A submarine in the
Pacific Ocean, as Mr. Bywater points out, though she might not
be able to sink an American battleship, she can normally injure
her. To tow a Super-Dreadnought across several thousand
miles of water " would be hopeless if enemy submarines were
about. "f Besides direct attack, submarines can indirectly
attack a fleet by sowing mine-fields in the neighbourhood of
naval ports, by forcing an enemy to cease offensive construction
and concentrate on the building of protective anti-submarine
craft. Again, with fleets based on oilless countries, the submarine
can strike at the capital ship economically by sinking her oil
tankers. As regards this very important use of the submarine
to starve the engines of a fleet Mr. Bywater writes :

' ... if experience in the world war counts for anything, the
losses among these vessels would be enormous. During that conflict
no less than 244 colliers and 44 oil tankers in the service of the British
Admiralty were sunk, mainly by enemy action. . . . Ships of this
type are peculiarly vulnerable to submarine attack owing to their
great length and low speed. So serious were the casualties suffered
that the reserve of oil fuel for the British Fleet was gradually reduced
to an eight weeks' supply. . . . The bulk of these losses were suffered
... a few hundred miles from the English coast in an area which
was closely patrolled. "X

From the above it would appear that the unanimity of the
British press, on the receipt of Mr. Balfour's declamation against
the submarine, made during the Washington Disarmament
Conference, was not due to her uselessness in naval warfare,
but to the fact that her power is so great that the British surface
supremacy of the seas is imperilled. If this be the true cause,
then it would be wise to acknowledge it. To force the head of
the British public under the sands of untruthfulness is scarcely
an action which deserves applause.

Now that I have examined the influence of the submarine on

* " Les Enseignements Mari times de la Guerre Anti-Germanique," Contre-
Amiral Daveluy, Part I., Chapter I.

| " Sea Power in the Pacific," H. C. Bywater, p. 290.

I Ibid., pp. 274, 275.

12

178 The Reformation of War

the military purpose of surface craft, I will show how this purpose
can be accomplished by moving an invading force not on the
surface of the water but under it.

The object of a fleet, as I have stated, is to maintain command
of the sea in order to enable both traders and soldiers to move
freely across the waters. This objective is gained by compelling
an enemy to accept a policy which guarantees this free movement,
and, if the enemy refused to accept this policy, in accordance with
the old theory of naval warfare his fleet was either destroyed or
blockaded, that is immobilized.

In itself, this destruction or restriction of the enemy's naval
power was but a means of accomplishing one of two naval pur-
poses. Once command had been secured, the hostile will could
either be attacked, directly, by landing an army on the enemy's
shores, or indirectly, by striking at his stomach by cutting off his
food supply. If the enemy's country were self-supporting, then
the second action was normally so prolonged that it was ruled out
of account. As generally the enemy's fleet had to be destroyed
or captured before complete command could be guaranteed, by
degrees these means obscured the end, so that a tradition was
created that the sole object of a fleet was to destroy another fleet.

As submarines can, however, move under the surface, the com-
manding surface fleet can be avoided. This means that the
economic purpose can still be fulfilled. To carry out, however,
the military purpose, as long as a traditional army is maintained,
would demand such an enormous number of submarines that it
becomes impracticable. Should, however, the nature of such an
army be so changed that a powerful force could be moved by
submarines under the water, it would then be possible to gain
command of the sea, not by destroying the enemy's fleet or by
blockading it, but by avoiding it and attacking the will of the
hostile nation upon which the stability of the fleet is based. In
fact, what is contemplated here is, in place of hopping over an
army by using aeroplanes, to dive under a fleet by using sub-
marines ; in both cases the objective is the same, namely, the will
of the hostile nation. If this can be accomplished, then the sub-

The Future of Sea Warfare 179

marine will become the most potent of naval weapons, surface
craft simply being maintained to protect merchantmen from
submarine attack. This will mean that the big capital ship will
eventually go out of commission and be replaced by smaller and
more mobile vessels.

During the Great War, the British Navy obtained surface
control so completely that it accomplished, within the limitations
of the existing land forces, its military purpose to the full.
Though the command of the surface of the sea was guaranteed,
surface craft were so powerless to maintain their economic pur-
pose that Great Britain was almost brought to her knees by the
German submarine attack, during which 8,500,000 tons of
British shipping were sent to the bottom.

There are two ways of attacking a ship physically ; the first,
when she is at sea and the second when she is in harbour, and the
submarine is no exception to this rule. Successful invasion and
the seizing of the enemy's naval bases is, from the general military
standpoint, a severer blow than the mere destruction of his fleet
at sea. To strike at his ports is to strike at the focal points of his
sea communications. A fleet alone can seldom do this, neither
can the army of an inland power accomplish such an operation
single-handed.

The Russo-Japanese war of 1 904-1905 illustrated clearly
the paramount importance of military co-operation in naval
enterprises of this nature, and accentuated the fact that " the de-
struction of the enemy's ships in harbour is as important as their
destruction at sea."* Curious to relate, however, these object-
lessons were entirely lost on British military and naval thought ;
the " blue water " school killed the " coast attack," and the de-
claration of war in 1914 found the British Navy and army en-
tirely unprepared to carry out such operations, which the war,
throughout its course, constantly demanded.

Lord Jellicoe writes : " Against Ostend and Zeebrugge, no
permanent result could be achieved by the Navy alone. ..."

* "Combined Operations," Major-General Sir George Ash ton, K.C.B., Jour-
nal of the R.U.S.I., February, 1920.

12*

180 The Reformation of War

And again : " The feasible landing-places, so far as we were con-
cerned, were unsuited to military strategy. . . ."* Why ?
Because either naval action would have to be heavily supported
by costly land attacks, or else troops must be landed from in-
numerable lighters, barges and small craft. I will now show that,
by means of submarines, it will be possible, in the near future, to
land, on any ordinary beach, a formidable military force as a
complete surprise.

The first tank operation ever planned was for a landing on the
Flanders coast. In 1917, this idea was revived and an account of
it is given in Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon's book, " The Dover
Patrol." Within ten years of the present date it is all but a
certainty that a reliable self-propelled water-crossing tank will
be invented, a machine of under twelve tons with a speed on land
of over 20 miles an hour and an extensive radius of action. It is
not impossible to suppose that a submarine could be built to carry
six of these machines, and that a squadron of ten of these sub-
marines, supported by a few submarine monitors and submarine
gas-projecting vessels, might appear off the enemy's coast-line or a
selected harbour, and, at the most unexpected of moments, and
far distant from any land supporting forces, suddenly, under cover
of gas and smoke clouds and fifteen-inch gun and howitzer shells,
land sixty tanks in a quarter that number of minutes. Within
an hour or two, the point selected might be destroyed and the
tanks re-embarked, making their way home on the surface or
below it. There is nothing impossible in such an attack, there is
nothing impossible in such a landing ; it is feasible, it is common-
sense, and it is yet another answer to the submarine peril, for the
navy which can effect such an operation first is the navy which is
first going to destroy its enemy's submarine bases. Here, then,
is a new reading to Sir Walter Raleigh's famous exclamation :

" I say that an army to be transported over sea and to be landed
again in an enemy's country, and the place left to the choice of the
invader, cannot be resisted on the coast of England without a fleet

* " The Crisis of the Naval War."

The Future of Sea Warfare 181

to impeach it. . . . For there is no man so ignorant, that ships without
putting themselves out of breath, will easily outrun the soldiers
that coast them."*

But the difference is this : a fleet will not know how to im-
peach such a landing, neither will the soldier know where to run,
for, in the words of Bacon : " Secrecy and celerity are the life of
despatch in all military operations," and here this secrecy and
celerity will be accentuated in their maximum degree, and may
be assisted by a simultaneous attack from the air.

The above example of a physical attack delivered by tanks
transported by submarines against a military or naval objective
should only be regarded as a stepping-stone to a moral attack on
the nerves and will of the hostile nation. Indeed, such an attack
is less difficult, since military objectives can hit back, while the civil
population, deficient of military protection, is at the mercy of an
invader.

In the last Chapter, I showed that, on account of the tank
being able to protect itself against the aeroplane, the brute force
theory of war would find a new outlet in the tank versus tank
battle. Further I showed that, though the enemy's tank army
would demand a concentration of an equal or superior force of
tanks against it in order to restrict its activities, every effort
should be made by small detachments of machines to avoid the
main hostile force, so that they may strike at the moral of the
civil population behind this force. A moment's consideration
will at once cause us to realize what a potent weapon the sub-
marine-carried tank will be in the moral attack.

For a continental power to invade the British Isles by means
of submarine-transported tanks would be a difficult operation,
unless the blow were delivered as a complete surprise. But for an
island power, such as Great Britain, to raid a continental power
by this method is much more feasible ; it is, in fact, so possible that
I will consider it in some detail.

In the past the main difficulty in harmonizing a combined
naval and military operation is closely connected with movement.

* "History of the World."

182 The Reformation of War

A fleet which possesses command of the sea can normally steam
to any point on an enemy's coast-line and effect a surprise before
the land forces can be assembled to meet it. To-day, this opera-
tion has become an exceedingly dangerous one, seeing that the
aeroplane can watch the approach of the invading force which,
en route, may be attacked by submarines.

On arriving at the point selected for disembarkation, the main
difficulty begins. The ships cannot crawl on to the land, and the
military forces to be landed cannot swim to the shore, and be-
cause of these limitations, the means adopted to transfer a muscu-
larly organized army from mechanically propelled ships is little
superior to those used by Julius Caesar, and much more complex,
for his triremes drew very little water. The result, in the past,
has frequently been (and as long as traditional armies are main-
tained will remain so) that all surprise is lost and that, before the
army landed can move forward, it will be confronted by an enemy
in superior strength.

Now let us consider a floatable tank carried in a submarine.
As the embarkation can take place at night, the initiation of the
operation will be secret. As the machines will mainly be trans-
ported under the water their voyage will be secret. As their
destination will alone be known to the invader their landing will
be secret. From their floating mechanical base will be launched
a floating army. This force will propel itself ashore, crawl up the
beach, and in place of converting it into the condition of Epsom
Downs on a Derby morning, will move straight inland at a speed
varying from 10 to 20 miles the hour. Within 24 hours of landing
it will be 200 miles within the enemy's country. Freed from
railwa3rs, and let us suppose possessing one week's radius of action,
it will be able to terrorize the enemy's people, and if threatened
by superior force, it will generalby be able to make for the coast,
possibly several hundred miles away from its original point of
landing, and swim out to the submarines and re-embark.

Let us now visualize three or four such forces operating at
different points against an enemy, and some picture may be
formed of the confusion resulting. Then, let us suppose that,

The Future of Sea Warfare 183

while these raiding forces are disorganizing the enemy's plans
and command, and demoralizing the civil inhabitants, as the
Vikings disorganized and demoralized half Europe a thousand
years ago, a determined invasion is launched at some vital
point ; it will be a difficult operation for the enemy to collect
his disintegrated forces to meet it, even if these forces are
mechanical.

The whole of such an operation depends on sea-power, the
only difference, when compared with the past, being, that while
formerly an army, using muscle as its motive force, could seldom
make good what the navy rendered possible, a mechanical
army can make it good, it can take advantage of a naval sur-
prise and accentuate this advantage by the speed with which
it moves inland.

Think now what such possibilities mean to us islanders.
No longer will our sailors belong to the Great Silent Fleet, but
to a fleet which belches war on every strand, which vomits
forth armies as never did the horse of Troy, and which will
swallow them up again, if the land appears unpropitious, and
carry them safely home beneath the ocean.

Think of the naval bases seized and the landing-places pro-
tected. Think of the paralysation of government and the
terrorization of mind. Think of the channel which separates
us from Europe. It has been called a " ditch " — it may become
a veritable tube railway for hostile armies.

Munchausen ! Munchausen ! Perhaps ; but do not let us
disparage our inventive genius like a certain Italian alchemist
did his own at the beginning of the sixteenth century. He
promised to fly from the walls of Stirling Castle to France. He
attempted to do so and, falling, broke a leg. He attributed
his failure to the fact that he used for his wings feathers of
fowls, which, he said, had an affinity for the dung-hill ! It was
not his feathers which possessed an affinity for this unpleasant
heap, but his brains ! He had been thinking backwards of
Icarus ; he should have been thinking forwards in terms of
the Wright Brothers.

184 The Reformation of War

Here then is the moral : Do not let us now, in the year
1923, continue to think backwards to 1914 ; let us think forwards
to 1930, 1940, 1950 and beyond, or we shall become pillars of
salt in an arid and unproductive wilderness. Let us look ahead ;
the world is getting small, but science is vastly huge. Every
rational thought is a true thought which may lead to realizable
effect. There is nothing too wonderful for science, and the
fighting services must grasp the wand of this magician and
compel the future to obey their will.

If we meditate for a moment on the above possibilities,
rendered practical by wedding tank to submarine, two facts
will strike us forcibly ; these are :

(i.) The secrecy and celerity of the operation,
(ii.) The vulnerability of the civil target.

If to these two weapons we add the aeroplane, this secrecy
and this vulnerability becomes enormously enhanced. Conse-
quently, we may well ask ourselves, as Fontenoy courtesies
have become completely out of date, will not formal declarations
of war follow suit. Bearing in mind that the main tactical
problem in war is to hit without being hit, is it common-sense
to expect a nation, reduced to fight for its life, a nation which
possibly possesses scientific weapons of tremendous power, and
the development of the power of which demands surprise in its
positive form — an unexpected and terrific blow, moral or
physical, according to the theory of warfare held — to place its
adversary on guard by saying : ' On August 4 I am going to
hit you." What is far more probable is that the enemy will
say nothing at all, or : " On August 4 I will agree to your terms,"
and then launch a surprise attack on the 3rd. Such action may
be proclaimed as immoral ; this, however makes it none the
less likely, because war is not a boxing match ; far from it — it is
a life and death struggle. To say to a would-be murderer,
" In five minutes I am going to shoot you," would be the act
of a fool, and, in the struggle for national existence, aggressive
nations are murderers and not prize-fighters. Surprise in its

The Future of Sea Warfare 185

positive form — an unexpected attack — possesses yet another
virtue : it enables bloodshed to be reduced to a minimum ;
in fact it enables a policy to be enforced with a minimum ot
killing or destruction of property — it is the true sword of
victory.

I predict that, when nations comprehend the purpose of
war, wars will not be declared, and that, consequently, small
mobile striking forces will be kept ready, like fire engines, to
extinguish at the shortest possible notice any conflagration which
may break out. In Chapter IV., I showed the brutal nature
of warfare based on muscle. In Chapter VII., I showed
how liquid gas dropped from an aeroplane would reduce
slaughter. In Chapter VIII., I showed that the tank would
introduce a reaction towards bloodshed, but that wars would,
in duration, be short and that surprise would become, more
than ever it has been in the past, the main instrument of victory.
In this Chapter I will outline yet one more form of battle and
yet one more war-road to peace.

It is a lovely day, not a cloud in the sky, as humanity wends
its daily path to work, toil and leisure. Two nations have
long been competitors for power which to-day is represented
by trade, one is Great Britain the other the Unknown. The
Unknown determines to strike. Its people know nothing of
the impending blow, for they are all socialists and consequently
are subjected to an iron discipline. Less still do the inhabitants
of the isle " set in the silver sea " realize that the day is any-
thing other than of the most perfect. Besides, being highly
educated democrats, they are all busily reading the last " Girl
Bride Divorce," which provides a vent for their hunting
spirit.

The Unknown possesses submarines, tanks and aircraft.
The numerical strength of which is immaterial, but what is
material is that, relatively, these forces are superior in type
to those in England. The submarines can carry six large tanks
each, the aeroplanes can carry seven tons of liquid gas apiece,
or a small tank of an equal weight. The Unknown general

186 The Reformation of War

staff have studied war. Why kill, why destroy ? War is but
a means to an end, the end is a more prosperous peace, and
prosperity demands international co-operation, possibly the
serfdom of one nation to another, but it cannot mean inter-
national destruction, for this is to turn prosperity upside-down.

The night of August 4 is purple and azure, and under the
twinkling stars the Unknown fleets set out : some high in the
air, some on the surface of the water ready to dive beneath it
should necessity demand.

It is day ; the advanced guard tanks have descended from
the air and proceed at a steady pace down the Edgware
Road or any other road which will take them to Westminster.
They emit an odourless gas, which causes the crowd now gather-
ing from all quarters to laugh irresistibly. Peals of laughter
greet the tanks, roars of laughter, shrieks of laughter, groans
of laughter, for to be unable to stop laughing at a tank is verit-
able agony. In Whitehall a sneezing mixture is emitted. A
policeman on traffic control sneezes and involuntarily lowers
his hand ; an elderly lady sneezes and gets knocked over by a
motor-bus, the driver of which sneezes and sneezes again. The
War Office and the Admiralty sneeze and cannot stop sneezing,
sneezing becomes an excruciating torture. At the Cenotaph
the Unknown Commander signals " Increase speed," and in a
minute his machines occupy New and Old Palace Yards and the
Victoria Tower Gardens. The nozzle of a hose-pipe is thrust
through a window of the House of Commons and a tap is turned
on. The gas emitted is a powerful melancholic mixed with
hot air, and, as the members breathe it, they become suicidally
despondent. Then the Unknown Commander, carefully pro-
tected by a gas-mask with a megaphone protruding from it,
like a second Cromwell, strides into the House and says :

" In the air above you there are five hundred aeroplanes
loaded with several thousand tons of a deadly gas. The garri-
sons of London are confined to their barracks by a stink barrage
which they are unable to cross. In Hyde Park and elsewhere
by three p.m. will be assembled five hundred formidable tanks.

The Future of Sea Warfare 187

What can you do ? You can sign this scrap of paper by which
you will agree to :

(i.) Subscribe £500,000,000 towards the cost of building

the Tokio-San Francisco tube railway,
(ii.) Remove all protective duties on the exports of the

Unknown nation,
(hi.) Sink your fleet and disband your army,
(iv.) Pull down your slums and build decent houses for

our socialist brothers in Great Britain,
(v.) Create an earldom for the Editor of the Daily Herald,

etc., etc."

What tomfoolery, how ridiculously absurd. Granted ; but
what can the Prime Minister do, this is the vital question ?
The five hundred machines overhead do carry lethal gas and the
tanks in Hyde Park are equipped with thermite shell. If the
Prime Minister hesitates, the Unknown Commander is quite
man enough to burn down or gas up a district or two to show
him that he is in dead earnest. Besides, the War Office and
Admiralty are still sneezing and are helpless. The Prime
Minister signs and then, with a sigh, turns to the masked com-
mander and says : " What country do you represent ? " The
Unknown bellows, " Eurasia," through his megaphone, and,
just before the Prime Minister swoons away in the arms of the
Secretary for War, the reporters allege that he murmured :
" Et tu, Brute ! "

The above I acknowledge is an exaggeration ; but, through
years of contact with my fellow men, I have learnt that it is
by exaggeration that man's mind is aroused, for of the meti-
culously proportioned man takes little heed. Granted that
it is a gross exaggeration, then an exaggeration of what ? Not
of traditional methods of war, for these can no longer be exag-
gerated, having reached the very apex of exaggeration at Verdun,
on the Somme and at Ypres. In place, an exaggeration of a
new type of warfare, warfare based on surprise and on science,
in one word, on brains ! A war which does not aim at killing

188 The Reformation of War

and destroying, but merely at imposing the will of one nation
on another as economically as brains can conceive. On victor
and vanquished alike, because, during peace-time, the welfare
of both forms the supports of the bridge we call prosperity.
Destroy one support and the other is rendered useless until
the stones are replaced and the bridge is rebuilt. Not by
victor or by vanquished single-handed, but by both unitedly.
In the future, wars will be looked upon as a means of creating a
better peace and not as a means of bruising a worn-out one.
So I believe that a day will arrive when wars of righteousness
will evolve from the present-day wars of commerce ; when
nations which will not work or rule for the benefit of the world
will nationally be stamped out of independence, so that the
world may become a fairer and a cleaner place to live in than it
has ever been before.

X

THE PROBLEM OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE

AS diplomacy is the art of maintaining policy by persuasion,
so is strategy the art of maintaining policy by force,
and, as policy depends on the ethical and economic conditions
of the nations, it is, consequently, changeful in nature, and
strategy, unless it can keep pace with these changes, must of
necessity become unethical and uneconomic. It is, therefore,
my intention in this Chapter to examine this question, which not
only confronts ourselves — a far flung empire — but every inde-
pendent country in the world.

To-day, the Empire is loaded with an immense debt accumu-
lated during the recent war and is suffering from acute nervous
unrest, which, in itself, is not altogether an unhealthy condition,
but which, at any moment, may become so, should it lead to a
nervous breakdown ; in other words to revolution. Outwardly,
the relationship of the Empire to foreign powers is uncertain,
for to-day no balance of power exists between the nations of the
civilized world. From this state, if past history is to be relied
upon, we can, however, with some certainty predict that until
the balance of power is re-established, and until one or more
demented nations again attempt to upset it by grasping at world
dominion, as Philip II., Louis XIV., Napoleon I. and William II.
did, a great war, in any way comparable to the recent war,
is unlikely. Our immediate strategical problem is, therefore, not
a great war but a problem of small wars and internal security
in militarily and politically backward lands. Both these problems
are primarily problems of movement and particularly of movement
in roadless and railless countries.

189

190 The Reformation of War

In examining this problem, I think it will simplify our ideas
if we look upon movement from its dimensional aspect, thus :

(i.) One dimensional movement, road, rail and river,
(ii.) Two dimensional movement, sea and cross-country,
(iii.) Three dimensional movement, air and under-water.

The first includes the traditional method of military movement,
and the second of naval ; the third includes both these dimensions,
but with this important difference, namely, that, on the actual
surface of the land or sea the mobility of aircraft is not generally
useful.

Bearing in mind these three dimensions of movement, our
future strategical problems are closely connected with the pro-
tection of our land roads, sea roads and air ways, in order that
trade may prosper and, in event of it being threatened, may be
secured by force. If we can guarantee a high condition of
prosperity, we shall simultaneously attain to a high state of
contentedness, which will mean that our policy will possess a
sound economic and ethical foundation. I mention this here as
it must never be forgotten that policy is as dependent upon strategy
as vice versa.

The problems of Imperial defence may be divided into three
categories — great wars, small wars and domestic tranquillity, the
objectives of which are the maintenance of policy internal and
external. Each of these problems is different in nature. Thus,
a great war is a contest between highly civilized and similarly
equipped opponents, in which tactical values are of the greatest
importance ; while a small war is normally the pursuit of an ill-
equipped enemy by a well-equipped antagonist, in which rapidity
of movement is the predominant factor and in which physical
geography plays a leading part. In the maintenance of law and
order the limiting factor is the law of the land, for while rioters
and rebels are at liberty to break it, seeing that they have cast
the law aside, the forces of the Crown are not similarly placed,
for, as their object is to reinstate the law, their actions must be
within the law until such time as the rebellion develops into a

The Problem of Imperial Defence 191

small war, when the maintenance of the law by persuasion is
replaced by its enforcement. The mere proclaiming of martial
law in a disturbed district in no way entitles the defence forces
to cease regarding the insurgents as citizens, for a rebel, however
hostile, is not an alien.

As I have already examined the possible future of great wars,
in this Chapter I will restrict my inquiry and my suggestions to
small wars and the maintenance of domestic peace. Are our
present means adequate, are they economical, and, if not, can
they be improved ? These are the main questions I will attempt
to answer, first of all inquiring into the premises of these two
questions and then examining how the three great means of
defence — the army, air force and navy, can assist us in the
solution of these problems.

(i.) The Small War Problem. While a great war is a struggle
between organized forces raised by civilized nations possessing
an intricate political system and an elaborate social organization
which is easily deranged by nervous shock, a small war is generally
waged against congeries of tribes or a loosely organized community
united by ties of blood rather than by the political and social
bonds of civilization. The organization of such a society, like
the organism of the lower animals, is controlled by a series of
nervous ganglia rather than by a centralized brain, consequently
the moral targets are small and numerous in place of being large
and few as in the case of a civilized power.* On these facts
may be built the following theory, namely, that in small wars
against uncivilized nations, the form of warfare to be adopted
must tone with the shade of culture existing in the land, by
which I mean that, against peoples possessing a low civilization,
war must be more brutal in type (not necessarily in execution)
than against a highly civilized nation ; consequently, physical

* Through not realizing this difference many curious mistakes have arisen
in the past, e.g. : The Graphic, September 30, 1899 : " The Strategy of the
Boer Campaign," by Charles Lowe : " Once Pretoria is in possession of our
troops all resistance in the Transvaal must collapse, for the simple reason that
all further supply of war material to the Boers must cease." Simple here is
an equivalent of silly !

192 The Reformation of War

blows are normally more likely to prove effective than nervous
shocks. If this theory be correct, then war on land will pre-
dominate over war in the air (moral warfare), as I shall explain
later on.

As regards small wars generally, two main problems face us,
the first is dependent on time and space, and the second on
organization and administration. Translated into military terms
these two problems are :

(i.) How are we going to secure our Empire by means of our
small army, small air force and depleted navy ?

(ii.) How are we going to establish a higher co-operation
than at present exists between our army, navy and air force ?

The first of these problems I shall deal with in this Chapter,
and the second in the following one.

The first problem is virtually one of fitting means to ends.
Our army is smaller than it was in 1914, and yet costs twice as
much ; our Empire is larger than it was in 1914, and is in a very
unsettled and nervous condition. How, then, are we to protect
it?

Because we lack money, we cannot increase the size of the
army to fit the Empire ; consequently, there is only one thing
which we can do, namely, reduce the size of the Empire to fit
our army, and there are two ways of doing this. The first is
based on the factor of space and the second on that of time.

(a) We can abandon large tracts of the Empire and so cut
down our liabilities until they balance our securities.

(b) We can increase our present speed of military movement
so that our securities, through enhanced mobility, may be brought
to balance our liabilities.

If we believe in the value of the Empire, then there can be no
shadow of doubt that duty demands that we should at least
attempt the second solution before putting into force the first.
I will explain this by means of a very simple example.

Aldershot is thirty miles from London. An athlete will
walk this distance in about ten hours and will be dog-tired at
the end of it ; a soldier will take two days — say thirty-six hours ;

The Problem of Imperial Defence 193

he also will be dog-tired at the end of the second day. In place,
I get into a Rolls-Royce car and travel to London in one hour,
and am perfectly fresh when I arrive there. What have I done ?
In terms of time I have reduced space by nine-tenths when com-
pared to the athlete and by thirty-nve-thirty-sixths when
compared to the soldier, and have to all intents and purposes
expended no physical energy in the process. Fit this picture to
the Empire, and suppose that, by means of a cross-country tractor,
we only double the mobility of the army, well then, in terms of
time, we shall have halved the size of the territories we are
at present called upon to protect. I will now turn to land
protection.

We, as the inheritors of a world-wide Empire, possess an all
but unlimited knowledge of the nature of small wars ; we have
engaged in them for over two hundred years, and throughout
this long period our difficulties in winning them have been very
similar. Looking back on the small wars of the past, we find
that in character they may be classified according to the topo-
graphical nature of the countries in which they most frequently
occur, namely :

(i.) Mountainous land,
(ii.) Desert land,
(iii.) Bush land,
(iv.) River land.

Generalizing the main characteristics which are coincident
with most small wars, they are found to be as follows :

(a) A lack of communications.

(b) A badly equipped and ill-disciplined enemy.

(c) An unhealthy climate.

(d) A lack of local supplies and water.

To summarize still further, it may ultimately be said that
small wars consist in overcoming physical geography in order to
chastise unorganized and ill-armed savages or brigands. The
enemy himself is frequently beneath contempt, but Nature in
small wars has hitherto proved herself, as often as not, to be

13

194 The Reformation of War

omnipotent ; consequently, the solution of the problem is not to
be sought in men or weapons but in movement. Any weapon
with which our men may be armed will almost certainly be superior
to the enemy's ; but unhindered as he is by the paraphernalia
which a civilized force requires for its welfare and subsistence,
his leg-power is frequently so superior to theirs as to render
inoperative the use of whatever weapons they may carry.

Concerning this problem, one thing is certain, and this is that
civilized leg-power cannot compete with uncivilized, and through-
out the history of small wars, from the earliest ages to present
times, the principle of " setting a thief to catch a thief " has
frequently been adopted.* When this has not been possible,
small wars have generally been won by seizing whatever communi-
cations may exist, by picketing these and so denying their use
to the enemy. Small wars, even more so than great wars, are
wars of communications. This being so, should we not cease
to base them on leg-power and, instead, substitute machine-
power as typified to-day by the tank, cross-country tractor and
aeroplane ?

Accepting this suggestion as eventually feasible, if not im-
mediately so, it is interesting to deduce the simplifications and
economy which will be effected by the introduction of machinery
in the four main small war theatres — mountain, desert, bush and
river land.

In mountainous countries, the main characteristics of past
operations have been as follows :

The dissatisfied area is entered by one or more of the natural

* E.g., in 1725, four companies of Highlanders were raised " for the protec-
tion of the country against robbers." In 1739, this number was increased
to eight companies and the whole constituted into the 42nd Royal Highlanders.
In a book entitled, " A Short History of the Highland Regiments," published
in 1743, we read : " The Highlander wears a sort of thin pump or brogue, so
light that it does not in the least impede his activity in running, and from being
constantly accustomed to these kind of shoes, they are able to advance
or retreat with incredible swiftness, so that if they have the better of any engage-
ment it is scarcely possible to escape from them, and, on the other hand, if they
are overpowered, they soon recover their hills, where it is impossible to reach
them." So with all other hill tribes.

The Problem of Imperial Defence 195

avenues of approach, usually riverbeds along which an indifferent
road has been constructed. The force operating consists of a
small fighting advanced guard, a lengthy supply train and a con-
siderable force of men to protect it. This protection is normally
guaranteed by " crowning the heights," that is by picketing the
summits of all positions of vantage within rifle shot of the column
wending its way along the valley. This elastic square of infantry,
which is drawn round the supply train, both by day and by night,
at varying distances, is only necessary because the men and
animals in the valley are pervious to bullets ; were they impervious
it would be unnecessary. This imperviousness can at once be
obtained by replacing infantry by tanks and pack mules by
bullet-proof cross-country tractors.

I will picture a mechanical punitive expedition operating
against Kabul. The distance from Peshawer to this town is
about 150 miles. Moving at four miles an hour for eight hours a
day, Kabul can be reached in five days. The Afghans crown the
heights as the column approaches, but gain no further advantage
than an unquenchable thirst which sooner or later will drive them
once again back to the valleys. Road-clearing tanks equipped
with " grabs " lead the advance in order to clear boulders and
other obstacles from the road ; bridging tanks follow, then the
fighting machines and the supply tractors. Having arrived
at Kabul, the expedition is supplied by aeroplanes, which, with
impunity, can ferry supplies through the air from the base and
bring back the sick and wounded to the hospitals.* If police
garrisons are required to occupy the city while the mechanical
force moves on, these can be transported by airship to the
" bridge-head " established by the tanks.

No communications need to be maintained ; the whole opera-
tion is really too simple to be considered as partaking of warfare.
Is it feasible ? No, not as yet, but it can be made so within a few
years. Is it worth instituting ? Yes, if lives, man-power, money
and time are worth economizing.

In desert warfare, what is the problem ? Not the enemy, who

* All field hospitals will disappear from the front and be relegated to the base.

13*

196 The Reformation of War

is armed with anything from a matchlock to a maxim, but water.
Water regulates the operation, and, as frequently it will not drop
from the clouds, why not make a certainty of it dropping by using
aeroplanes ? In desert warfare, if the wells are 20 miles apart,
marching becomes difficult ; if 40, an extensive train of camels
has to be used. In 1885, Sir H. Stewart took 21 days to cross
from Kortito Gubat,* a distance of 180 miles ; a fast moving tank
would take 48 hours and an aeroplane only one and a half. In
marching order, a man carries one and a half pints of water, a
mule 16 gallons and a camel 32 gallons ; there is no difficulty in
constructing a tank which will carry 1,220 or 2,240 gallons, or an
aeroplane which will carry 224 to 336. The whole problem is so
simplified by machinery that it again practically ceases to be
a question of warfare at all. A few aeroplanes would have saved
Gordon, and El-Teb, Maiwand, or Isandhlwana could each have
been turned into decisive British victories by a single tank.

Bush warfare forms a rather more intricate problem, as the
nature of the country may frequently be difficult for roadless
traction. Ordinary bush and scrub land should prove no hin-
drance even to existing types of machines. Dense forest land,
however, forms a real obstacle, especially if swamps also exist.
As we are so seldom confronted by this type of warfare, it would,
in my opinion, be uneconomical to attempt to construct giant
floating machines which could crash through the trees and splash
through the thick waters.

The problem in normal bush warfare is very similar to that
already dealt with in mountain warfare, for it resolves itself into
one of the protection of the administrative services. Supply
trains have again to be protected by means of an elastic square of
men moving forward through the jungle, sufficiently far from the
carriers and pack animals to prevent these from being pelted with
pot legs and chopped up telegraph wire. A small tank needs no
such protection and but a slightly better road than carriers re-
quire, and its supply by aeroplane should generally be feasible,
even if the country be covered with thick bush.

* The chief difficulties of this expedition were those connected with supply.

The Problem of Imperial Defence 197

In river warfare it is hardly necessary to accentuate the pos-
sibilities of an amphibious tank. In the attempted relief of Kut
during the Great War, the supreme difficulty was one of com-
munications— the command of the Euphrates. If supply ships
could have proceeded up the river, the garrison would not only
have been relieved, but there is every probability that Bagdad
would have been occupied months before it was, and quite pos-
sibly the war shortened. The movement of the ships was re-
stricted by gun-fire from the river banks. If amphibious tanks
could have been employed, these would have preceded the ships,
landed at suitable points and turned the flanks of the Turkish
gunners. As a matter of fact good land machines would probably
have proved as useful.

In each of the four types of small wars examined above, one
outstanding tactical deduction may be made if muscle-power is
replaced by machine-power, and this is that : small wars will
cease directly an ill-armed antagonist is denied the support of natural
obstacles.

Whatever may be the demand for future great wars, for
present and future small wars motorization is essential. Recently,
a rising of the Senussi was quelled by three armoured cars. Dur-
ing the South African War, de Wet was never caught, but when
at the beginning of the last war he again took to horse, he was
run to ground by an armed motor-car in a few weeks. If a
wheeled vehicle can do this, a tracked vehicle can do several
times as much; it can, in fact, indirectly reduce the size of our
Empire by endowing the soldier with increased power of move-
ment— this is our immediate small-war problem.

The problem of the use of aircraft in small wars is very dif-
ferent from that in great wars. Moral attack is localized on ac-
count of the loose system of government which exists in most
uncivilized lands and on account of these lands possessing a very
rudimentary nervous system — lack of newspapers, telephones,
telegraphs, railways, postal service, etc., all of which link indivi-
duals into one corporate nervous organization. Physical attack
is rendered difficult on account of natural obstacles — mountains,

198 The Reformation of War

forests and deserts, and on account of paucity of fixed communi-
cations— roads and railways.

Bearing these two means of attack in mind, I will examine the
following small war difficulties from the point of view of the use of
aircraft.

(i.) Reconnaissance, due to lack of maps and definite or fixed

objectives,
(ii.) Movement, due to lack of roads and innumerable physical

obstacles,
(iii.) Protection, especially of lines of supply,
(iv.) Offensive Power, lack of, due to the mobility of the

enemy,
(v.) Supply, due to a lack of communications.

Reconnaissance. In mountainous regions and over vast
expanses of desert land, tactical reconnaissance by aeroplane
presents many difficulties. Known towns and villages may be
visited, but villages among mountains are difficult to locate and in
desert countries may be inhabited one day and abandoned the
next. I consider it probable, therefore, that one of the main
intelligence duties of aircraft will be that of photography, for the
past has shown that no less that ioo square miles of country can
be photographed by a flight of from four to six aeroplanes in one
day. Such work as this must be of the utmost value to the troops
engaged.

Movement. Aircraft being able to dispense with roads and
fly over physical obstacles may, in certain cases, be able to trans-
port small garrisons from point to point. But, until they can
land on very restricted areas of ground, this will not generally be
possible. Their main duty, in this respect, will be to transport
staff officers from place to place, either for the purpose of con-
trolling military operations or for that of parleying with the enemy
or with neutral and friendly tribes.

Protection. For protective work, aircraft will undoubtedly be
of the utmost use, for not only can they protect the troops on the
ground by co-operating with them, ranging their guns and re-

The Problem of Imperial Defence 199

porting concentrations of the enemy, but they can protect our
own communications and attack the enemy's as they did those of
the Turkish Army during the final operations in Palestine, in 1918.

Offensive Power. Their offensive power, though local, is
great. At Kabul, in May, 1920, the single attack of one machine
caused extensive damages to the arsenal, which formed, however,
a tactical objective not frequently met with in small wars. For
attacks on villages and positions out of reach of the troops, they
are the only means possible ; further, they can frequently attack
the economic resources of the enemy, his wells, coops and herds,
and so, on occasion, force him to surrender.

Supply. I am of opinion, however, that the greatest of the
many uses to which aircraft can be put in future small wars is that
of supply work, which is, at present, the pivotal difficulty in these
operations. At the siege of Kut and in the final advance on
Aleppo supplies were sent by air. In the autumn of 1917, the
German naval airship, L 59, loaded with supplies and so con-
structed that her frame and covering could be made use of by
troops, sailed from Bulgaria to German East Africa and though,
through an error, her journey was made in vain, she nevertheless
covered a distance of 4,500 miles in 96 hours. Bearing in mind
that an aeroplane carrying three tons can feed a battalion for one
day and that an airship carrying 60 tons can feed a battalion for
three weeks, the possibility of overcoming the age-long difficulty
of supply in small wars becomes manifest, a difficulty which faces
us to-day in a more acute form than it faced Alexander 2,300
years ago.

As in great wars, so in small wars, the chief hindrance to the
full use of aircraft lies not in the difficulty flying machines ex-
perience in co-operating with the troops, but in the difficulty the
troops experience in co-operating with aircraft. They can move
swiftly and bomb fairly accurately, for rifle fire is, normally, the
only anti-aircraft defence they have to meet. They can destroy
wells and pipe-lines, and can cause local panics, but, as their crews
can seldom occupy the positions attacked, their influence is transi-
tory. Surely this is not the fault of the aeroplane but of the

200 The Reformation of War

soldier with his speed of two and a half miles an hour and fifteen
miles a day. If he will abandon his legs and take to tracks he can
move at an average speed of ten miles an hour and one hundred
miles a day. In one day he will then accomplish what he can
seldom now accomplish in ten days, and, by doing so, he will not
only accentuate his own importance but he will enhance, out of
all present recognition, the influence of aircraft on the problems
of small wars.

Since piracy is, to all intents and purposes, a thing of the past,
small wars are restricted to land operations except for guerilla
warfare at sea, and possibly, in the future, in the air as well ;
nevertheless, opportunities in small wars will frequently arise in
which the navy can assist the land and air forces. This will more
particularly be the case when an amphibious tank has been pro-
duced, for then, as I have already shown in Chapter IX., ships will
virtually be able to shoot armies onto the shore ; consequently,
tank-carrying vessels, which can steam at high speed, are likely
to become recognized naval craft. As these tanks, when once on
shore, will require aeroplane co-operation, both tactical and ad-
ministrative, aeroplane-carrying vessels will also be needed.
With these two types of ships and the war ships themselves, a
fleet will become a completely self-contained fighting force
capable of operating on and in the three elements of water, earth,
or air. The possibilities of such a force, for the major police work
of the Empire, need no accentuation, for they must be visible to
all.

Still one more question confronts the navy, the type of vessel
with which it intends to picket the seas and oceans. Hitherto,
this all-important duty has been carried out by cruisers ; but the
naval operations of the Great War showed quite clearly that,
though the few scattered German cruisers were able to do con-
siderable damage to their enemy's shipping, their life was a short
one, because the German High Sea Fleet could not support them.
The war also showed, as I have already pointed out, that the only
vessel which is able to dispense with fleet protection is the sub-
marine ; consequently, though cruisers may still be used for out-

The Problem of Imperial Defence 201

post duties, there can be little doubt that ocean-going sub-
marines will, in many cases, be able to carry out this work more
efficiently. I will now turn to the second main problem of this
Chapter.

(ii.) The Problem of Internal Security. Peacemongers, who
are ever crying loudly for universal and total disarmament,
seldom if ever seem to realize that domestic peace is based on
military force, and that the maintenance of domestic peace
is a more important problem than that of foreign invasion.
Disband the Home Army in England to-morrow, and either
the police forces will have to be quintupled and armed, or, at any
moment, a revolution may overthrow the government. Revolu-
tions have many causes, but the immediate cause of practically
every revolution in the past has been weakness of military
power to maintain law and order. It is for this reason that
anarchists, communists and socialists are ever active in direct-
ing their energies towards disarmament or the socialization of
military power, not because they hate war but because they
loathe peace and know full well that if the watch-dog of the
State is shot or poisoned, they will be free for a space to plunder,
ravish and burn to their hearts' content. What they really
desire is civil war, and if the reader does not believe me, then
I can only suggest that he study the works of Weishaupt, Clootz,
Babeuf, Fourier, Blanc, Proudhon, Marx, Bakunin and the
present-day Bolshevists — a wilderness of howling blood-intoxi-
cated gorillas.

The maintenance of law and order requires two forces, one
mobile and one stable. The mobile force is represented by
the police, who do not so much enforce the law as, through their
uniforms, express it. They move everywhere, and, though
little is said, they endow peace-lovers with a confidence in
security and peace-haters with a fear of punishment. The stable
force is the army, which, quite rightly, is little seen in public ;
nevertheless, silently it stands behind the police ever ready to
enforce the law when persuasion not to break it fails to impress
the lawless.

202 The Reformation of War

The problem of internal security, as concerns the Empire,
may be examined under two main headings.

(i.) The maintenance of law and order in civilized countries,
(ii.) The maintenance of law and order in undeveloped
countries.

The maintenance of law and order is guaranteed by a state
of peacefulness ; consequently, when force has to be resorted
to, its object is to prevent violence, first, by the moral threat of its
application, and secondly, when this has proved useless, by the
least possible expenditure of violence compatible with the re-establish-
ment of quietude.

All social upheavals, such as riots, rebellions and revolutions,
are at base psychological, they are like attacks of intermittent
fever, they give little public notice of their advent and they
prostrate a district rapidly and frequently are highly contagious.
In all these disturbances, there are two main difficulties : first,
their suppression normally demands bloodshed ; and secondly,
it is difficult to shed the blood of the rioters or rebels without
shedding the blood of the innocent as well. Though in the past man
has had no'qualms as to killing alien enemies, he, in modern times,
has shown the greatest concern, and quite rightly, in killing the
most demented of brother citizens. So much so, that, through
delaying the social cupping, society has on occasion succumbed
through a rush of blood to the brain. The whole difficulty, it will
be seen, is one of killing. First, is the dog mad, for otherwise I do
not want to shoot him ; secondly, if I fire, I shall probably hit the
old lady on the other side of the street. But why kill, why
shoot, why fire ? Why not instead use common-sense ? What
then is the antidote ?

The object of an antidote to revolution, according to the
premises I have laid down, is the maintenance of law and order
without bloodshed. To kill sick men is no cure, and it frequently
exasperates the surviving relatives.

The Problem of Imperial Defence 203

The main requirements of the antidote lie in accomplishing
the following acts without harm to the individuals concerned :

(i.) The breaking up of crowds and revolutionary meetings,
(ii.) The stopping of riots and acts of violence,
(iii.) The protection of houses and public buildings,
(iv.) The isolation of areas infected by revolution.

The whole question of revolution must be looked upon as
a social disease and not as an act of felony. Reason must,
therefore, be exercised and not anger ; common-sense and not
violence.

The means at our disposal must be sought for in the realms
of chemical sciences and not in those of military law and
musketry. Innocuous gases which anaesthetize crowds or
temporarily blind them, cause them to sneeze violently, vomit,
go to sleep, laugh irresistibly, or acutely irritate their abdominal
regions, producing a violent though harmless distemper of the
bowels, should be sought for by our chemists, who are far too
prone to seek for lethal gases in place of those the effect of
which is sedative, soporific, mirthful, or comic.

In thinking out a plan of action, the old methods of violence
must be banished from our minds, for the employment of
truncheons and rifles only leads to the loss of life among valuable
though misguided citizens, and frequently among perfectly
innocent people as well. Besides this, violence is apt to in-
flame a crowd and to glorify its disease in the eyes of affected
and unaffected onlookers. Why, then, adopt so unintelligent
a procedure when a little gas will produce, among the most
truculent sans-culottes , so violent a distemper that they will
not only be prevented from proceeding with their nefarious task,
but that the onlookers, watching them at a safe distance, will
be merrily amused by their contortions. Ridicule is a potent
weapon, and when coupled with acute colic, is apt to become
irresistible. The redudio ad absurdum method, and not that
of lex talionis is the more effective in dealing with revolutions
as with many other dissatisfactions.

204 The Reformation of War

As to the methods which might be employed in order to
carry out the above requirements, they are innumerable, and
the following are merely examples of what might be done.

Crowds and seditious meetings, which are usually dispersed
by some form of violence, might be broken up by a simple
sneezing mixture. Men cannot talk and sneeze simultaneously,
and unless they can talk a meeting loses its interest. Riots
might be stopped by a colic gas or a local anaesthetic or some
sedative mixture. Houses and public buildings could be pro-
tected by similar means, or by a laughing gas which would
make a burglar the best of friends. Dissatisfied areas could
be completely isolated by a strong lachrymatory solution
sprinkled in the streets surrounding them by a tank, which would
operate as a tear-producing water cart. Surely such a method
as this is more economical and reasonable than a cordon of
hundreds of police. Such, at least, are a few of the means which
might be employed, and certainly they appear to me to be more
common-sense than those which had to be resorted to in Sidney
Street a few years ago, when a powerful force of police, a bat-
talion of infantry and a battery of guns besieged a single house
occupied by three desperadoes !

If the above suggestions are worthy of consideration, then
steps should be taken to create an organization capable of putting
them into execution immediately trouble arises. This is a very
simple matter, once our chemists have agreed upon the means,
for all that is necessary is to issue anti-riot appliances to every
police and fire station, and to hold central reserves of these
under military control in dissatisfied areas. The actual opera-
tors of colic gas, etc., should of course be provided with respira-
tors, or otherwise they may be seriously affected before they
have completed their patriotic task.

The first consideration which will strike the average English-
man, who is entirely wanting in imagination, is that his fellow
countrymen will not tolerate gas because it is a Hunnish in-
vention. Such a contention is not only untrue but absurd,
for when social upheavals are viewed in the light of crowd

The Problem of Imperial Defence 205

diseases, surely it is no more Hunnish to draw, under the influence
of gas, the fangs of a riot than it is to do so in the case of a
patient sitting with ill-favoured teeth in the dental chair.
Chloroform was discovered by an eminent Scotsman and not
by a Hun. To shoot down a mob is like operating on a patient
without an anaesthetic, and if the use of anaesthetics is con-
sidered humane in the case of individuals, it is only common-
sense to apply them also to crowds temporarily affected with
the fever of rebellion. Once this has been done, their leaders
can be carefully extracted by a method guaranteed to be
absolutely painless to the crowd itself, and the leaders are not
only the teeth but the brains of every revolution.

Having now arrived at a system whereby the stability of
domestic peace may be attained in the hubs of the Empire —
the highly civilized centres and especially in England — I will
move outwards towards its circumference. First, let the
reader never forget that every British citizen, according to the
ethics of British rule, has a right to live, even when temporarily
demented, and consequently that law and order must be
maintained and enforced by as bloodless a process as possible.
To kill a man may destroy the ravages of disease, but it is no
cure.

To-day the police-soldier is armed with weapons of war,
and I consider that, so far as it is possible, he should be equipped
with weapons which neither kill nor permanently injure —
what he requires is a chemical " strait- jacket " he can clap
on the offender. Is any Imperial benefit gained by shooting
down several thousand Hindoos in Amritsar or Moplahs in
Madras ? For the greater part of their lives these unfortunate
victims were useful, law-abiding citizens ; for a few days or
weeks they were demented maniacs. Dementia is not cured
with the axe.

To-day the British police-army may be likened to a poor
overworked country doctor who, possessing no carriage or car,
is compelled to walk from patient to patient in order to tend
them as best he can. On his feet he can manage to visit about

206 The Reformation of War

twenty scattered patients in the course of a day, but in a motor-
car he can visit forty, and, therefore, it would appear wise to
provide him with one, for it will double his utility.

Our present problem of the maintenance of domestic tran-
quillity in undeveloped lands is identical with the problem of
the above doctor. Law and order constitute the health of a
people, unrest its disease. Those who judge and govern us are
the specialists, and our soldiers are the general practitioners
upon whose skill the social health ultimately depends. Some-
times the soldier is called upon to perform a surgical operation,
sometimes to administer an anaesthetic, sometimes a pill, even
a bread pill, for frequently social disturbances can be as easily
cured by suggestion as bodily ones, for the origins of both, as
often as not, are imaginary. Our difficulty is not one of skill
but of distance, of time taken in our numerous and periodical
visits, for, as the greater number of our patients are of barbarous
predilections, they live in most inaccessible places.

To-day our lack of military mobility stands out in truly
remarkable contrast against the present-day enormous powers
of civil means of movement. Some day roads and railways
will be built throughout the Empire, but only after the countries
concerned are worthy of their construction. What then are
we to do ? We must maintain law and order so that stability
of government may foster prosperity and contentment. We
can do this either by maintaining an army of a million police-
soldiers, costing several hundred million pounds yearly, which
to-day means conscription and bankruptcy, or we can drasti-
cally reduce the army and motorize the remainder.

In the problem of domestic peace, it is again the tank which
is the main factor in its solution. We may not be able to design
a machine which will scale hill-tops, but why should we attempt
to scale hill-tops if in an armoured box on tracks we can advance
securely along the valleys, and when this progress is impossible,
walking can always be resorted to. The doctor may, on occa-
sion, have to leave his car at the garden gate and walk from there
to the front door of his patient's house. Because of this his

The Problem of Imperial Defence 207

car is not rendered permanently useless ; in internal security
our problem is very similar.

And when he enters the house what does he do ? He hears
that the patient is suffering from delirium tremens or Ghandiitis.
Does he creep towards the bed and, when the maniac is not
looking, hit him over the head with an axe ? On the contrary,
he tries to pacify him, and, if necessary, straps the sick man
down or injects a does of morphia, so that he may not injure
himself and others. In fact, he tackles the case on the spot
and uses common-sense.

Normally, the above work is carried out by a police force
proper, that is a force which is of the people it controls, and
which moves among them and which maintains a state of
peacefulness more by organizing harmony and suggesting the
folly of discord than by open or violent compulsion. The
strength of a police force lies not in its armament but in the
" human touch " it maintains with the people generally, both
with those who conduct themselves peacefully and those who
do not ; in its social utility, its ubiquity and constant presence
is its power based.

In its essential nature, military force is the antithesis of
police force; consequently, when it is necessary to reinforce
the police, it is equally necessary to reduce the soldier to the
footing of an armed constable before employing him as a fight-
ing man, and it must be remembered that a constable is not a
fighting man but a man who prevents others fighting. Like
the Grecian heralds, the police do not apply the sword, but,
when two swords are drawn, they strike them apart.

The question now arises, realizing what police work entails,
is it possible for an air force to police a country, and if the
answer is in the negative, then of what assistance is such a force
to the existing police and military garrisons ?

To begin with, I believe that the very nature of aircraft
is such as to preclude the first suggestion, because mankind
lives on the earth and not in the air ; consequently, in the air
human-touch is lacking. For example, we really cannot say :

208 The Reformation of War

" Mosul is a turbulent city ; very well then, send fifty bombing
machines there and blot it out, obliterate it like Carthage —
man, woman and child." We cannot do this, as it is really
too easy to be practical ; further, we cannot do it as we are no
longer living in the days of Nebuchadnezzar or Ghengis Khan ;
and further still, because the British Empire has not been built
upon obliteration but upon pacification. And yet, it is oblitera-
tion which air force officers are so frequently recommending.
Thus a well-known Wing Commander writes :

"One object must be selected — preferably the most inaccessible
village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish . . .
the attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and
unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on horses,
inhabitants, crops and cattle."

In fact, an Assyrian scourge is to descend upon the land
which completely puts to blush the German atrocities of 1914.

For unimaginative people it is so easy to be brutal in the air,
for they are out of touch with the burning homesteads, the
terror-stricken women and the maimed children below them. I do
not believe that our airmen realize this, for otherwise they would
not suggest it. Would the above eminent officer walk into an
oriental harem and rip the women and children up with a
kukri ? He would not, and yet he suggests burning them
alive or blowing them to pieces. Why does he do so ? The
answer is, because he talks like one in the air and not like one
on the earth ; he talks like an owl hooting over the city.

Is then the air force useless in maintaining law and order ?
Far from it, if it be used, as every police force should be used,
namely, to pacify, and not to obliterate. In the air it is a con-
stant reminder that force can be applied, but I consider that
it is not in this direction that its main usefulness is to be sought,
but rather in its ability to transport political authorities to and
from dissatisfied areas so that they may gain human-touch
with the causes of dissatisfaction and nip them in the bud.
An action, very similar to the one I here suggest, was carried
out during the final stages of the recent Somaliland operations.

The Problem of Imperial Defence 209

Within forty-eight hours of the fall of the Mullah's stronghold,
the Governor of Somaliland travelled three hundred miles in one
day and visited the local chiefs, with the most satisfactory
results. Had he been able to do so before the outbreak, it is
quite conceivable that this particular small war might have
been prevented. Further uses naturally suggest themselves,
such as the transportation of small parties of policemen, the
withdrawal of loyal subjects from dangerous areas, the observa-
tion of disturbed localities and the breaking up of hostile meetings
by spraying the crowds below with non-lethal chemicals.

In the policing of the Empire the fleet can also play its
part and an important one too, if certain minor changes are
introduced. Ships in foreign stations are always " mobilized " for
war, and, though they can bombard almost any stretch of coast-
line at short notice, it is not through blowing towns and villages
to atoms that law and order is maintained. The sailor's weak-
ness in police work lies in the fact that he is not well equipped
for land fighting. Armed with a rifle and bayonet and a few
machine guns, when on land his great idea is to trundle about
a funny little field-piece. The twelve-pounder has its values,
but they are incomparably inferior to those of a small amphibious
tank. All ships on outpost work should carry at least four
of these machines ; then, for police work, they can emit from
them non-toxic chemicals, and for war work, if required, bullets
and shells. Suppose that a rebellion threatening the lives
of British citizens broke out at Hong-Kong and there were no
troops there, the crew of our present-day cruiser could render
small assistance on land, but, equipped with four tanks, it
could make its presence felt, and felt in such a manner that the
rebellion might well be quashed in a few hours.

To conclude, in the many sub-problems of the great problem
of Imperial defence, the crucial factor is that " unity is strength."
At present we have three separate defence forces and one objec-
tive. We have an army, a navy and an air force all striving to
maintain the integrity of the Empire. Surely it is but a matter
of common-sense to suggest that if, for purpose of direction and

14

210 The Reformation of War

control, these three forces could be amalgamated into one force
our many problems would be simplified. " Simplicity,'
Napoleon once said, " is the soul of war." Unity is simplicity
and triplicity is complexity ; consequently, " Triajuncta in uno "
would appear to be the true objective of administrative
reformation.

XI

THE MEANING OF GRAND STRATEGY

THE world as we know it is a conglomerate mass of relation-
ships and not a mixture of absolute quantities ; hence
the impossibility of defining its terminals, which lie beyond
the grasp of man's three dimensional mind. Without the
conception of space, time becomes incomprehensible and vice
versa. Equally is good incomprehensible without evil, and so
also is peace without war. Man cannot, in the absolute sense,
destroy or create, for all that he can do is to work and think
by analogy and evolve by integration.

When we talk of abolishing war, we state an absurdity,
for nothing can be abolished, and if man possessed so super-
natural a power, the universal harmony, which is the balance
between apparent opposites, would be destroyed, and the
world as we know it would vanish. As well attempt to abolish
the centrifugal force of a whirling planet and seek to maintain
its centripetal energy as to maintain a state of peacefulness
without war, for such a peace would surpass understanding.

The weakness of the human mind is due to the complexity
of its surroundings. They are so mysterious that, in order
to understand them at all, man thinks of things in compart-
ments. Over the map of knowledge he draws dividing lines
and says this is black and that is white. This procedure con-
ventionally is useful, but it in no way permits us to imagine
that we can destroy the absorption of light and maintain its
reflection, without abolishing light itself. So with war, to
maintain peace and abolish war is to destroy life.

211

14*

212 The Reformation of War

In the preceding Chapters I have discussed in general terms
a few of the phases of war, though it must be realized that its
varieties are apparently infinite : Wars of mind, of thought,
of instinct, of impulse, of sentiment, of words and of action,
each possessing a dual motion, a forward one engendered by the
differences of the extremes in its nature, and a recoil or back-
ward movement resulting from friction between the forward
movement and its surroundings. This recoil, in its turn, possesses
a reaction, and between action and reaction is begotten reforma-
tion, a digestion of opposites which absorbs what existing
circumstances deem profitable and evacuates the dogmas of
conditions which are dead.

The soldier does not only think of war as a compartment
of human activity, but as a nest of pigeon-holes : strategy,
tactics, organization, administration, etc., etc., each nest being
crammed with pill-boxes — infantry tactics, cavalry tactics,
artillery tactics, etc., etc. The danger underlying these uncor-
rected values is to be sought in the temptation to invest them
with individual, that is separate, existences, and then, when
combined action is demanded, to produce a mixture of values
in place of a compound.

This process of separation leads to a complete misunder-
standing of the purpose of analysis, which should aim at
separating components so that their differences may be har-
monized and not merely arranged in various orders. By
analysis we obtain facts, but it is not by mixing these but by
an integration of them that we obtain harmony. Two mole-
cules of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen do not appear as water
until they are combined, and though analysis enables us to
discover the elements of water, synthesis alone enables us to
unite these elements so that they form water, which, in nature,
is totally different from Hydrogen or Oxygen.

With ideas and actions this synthesis is accomplished through
the combustion of the intellect, which can produce a new
" substance " out of a variety of old " substances." In Chapter
II., I showed that there is a science of war possessing certain

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 213

elements and principles, and that this science is applicable to
all forms of war, since war cannot exist without the elements
of will, weapons, movement and protection. In that same
Chapter I also showed that there is an art of war, and that this
art is ever changing. I do not propose here to examine the
changes which gas, tanks, aeroplanes, etc., will demand in this
art ; all I will state is that these changes must follow well defin-
able lines, those of increased moral, increased hitting power,
increased mobility and increased protection. I will leave it
to the reader to equate the powers of a mechanical army with
those of a muscular one ; the changes consequent in the art
of war will then become apparent. In place, I intend mounting
as high as I am able the pinnacle of war and looking down upon
its sides in order to gain universal perspective.

War may be compared to a pyramid possessing a base and
three surfaces. Its base is represented by civil moral and re-
sources, and its three surfaces, or sides, by the land, sea and air
forces. Our great work is to build this pyramid.

In the past there existed a base and two sides, an oar-pro-
pelled navy and a leg-propelled army ; then oars gave way to sails,
and later on, sails to steam, and the edifice of war became a very
ramshackle affair since the divergence between the two fighting
sides grew to extremes. Then the air was conquered and a com-
pleted pyramid became possible.

To-day, when we attempt to join up an army, navy and air
force, we arrive at a very complex and unstable organization, for
the means of movement of each force is different. In place of
these different means of movement — muscle, steam and petrol — I
will suppose that these means are oil, petrol and petrol, then
the differences will be considerably reduced. As man lives on
land, I will call the three sides when built together a mechanical
defence force, a force possessing no separate and distinct land, air
and sea force, but a force resulting from the integration of these
three. At the base of the pyramid these three forces are at their
maximum divergence, at its apex they are completely united.
Whether an apex will be reached I cannot say ; the top of the

214 The Reformation of War

pyramid, for all I know, may be truncated ; nevertheless, I will
suppose that an apex does exist, then it follows that the nearer
we approach this apex the more closely will the natures of the
three forces coincide, until eventually they merge into one.

Whatever period of war we may examine, the base of this
pyramid is, from its military aspect, the moral of the civil popula-
tion and the commercial and industrial resources at their disposal.
This base gives stability to the whole figure, it forms the fourth
surface uniting the three above it. If we compare the three
military surfaces to earth, water and air, then the civil will may
be likened to fire, the extinguishment of which in war is the object
of the three military elements. When these four elements are
compounded, a fifth element emanates from the compound, the
element of spirit or the national will to exist ; it is the driving force
of all warlike activities. During peace time this spirit is ever
present, and though its nature, during war, does not change, the
resistance offered to its progress is greater, and the relationship
between this resistance and the will to win gives to any particular
war its specific character.

During peace or war, our object is to conserve and control
this spirit ; consequently, we must understand the probable
resistance to be met with, for otherwise we shall not be able to
gauge the character of war, and not being able to gauge the
character we shall not know what type of warfare will prove the
most efficient and economical. This control and direction of the
will to win and all the means whereby this will may be expressed
I will call grand strategy.

Once we have obtained the differences between force and re-
sistance we can evolve a plan of action ; this is our grand tactics.
The putting of this plan into motion is called strategy, of which
there are two categories : major strategy, or the movement of
masses outside the battlefield, and minor strategy, or the move-
ment of units and individuals on it. From movement springs
action or tactics, major tactics dealing with the actions of masses
and minor tactics with those of units and individuals.

From the above it will be seen that there are no absolute

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 215

compartments of war in either the science or art of warfare.
Analysis enables us to discover the elements of war, inference the
principles of war, and observation the conditions of war. Syn-
thesis compounds all these parts into one whole, and the nearer we
arrive at a perfect compound the simpler becomes our task.

Preparation for war or against war, from the grand strategical
aspect, is the main problem of peace, just as the accomplishment
of peaceful prosperity is the main problem of war. I have already
defined more than once what I mean by the objective in war, and
I have shown that lessons learnt from the recent war would lead
us to suppose that the main purpose of a fleet is in nature
economic, the main purpose of an army military and the ma n
purpose of an air force moral. Consequently, it stands to reason,
even if the traditional theory of war prevail, that if, in the next
great war, these three purposes can be brought to coincide in the
objective, that is meet in a point, in place of, as heretofore,
running on courses parallel to each other, the united strength of
the defence forces will be enormously enhanced. There will then
no longer be a naval campaign, a military campaign and possibly
also an aerial campaign, all fought more or less independently of
each other, but one single campaign, in which the various opera-
tions will be coincidental.

I have already examined the limitations of the three fighting
forces and have shown that by mechanicalizing an army not only
can the tactics of these three forces be more closely correlated but
also their strategy, that is the interrelated movements between
them. The question now arises, if in the art of war similarity of
movement can be established and, consequently, its categories
synchronized, is it equally feasible to unify military science and so
develop one science of war which will be equally applicable to
warfare on land, at sea and in the air. This may seem an ir-
relevant question to ask, since it is well known, or at least should
be, that the principles of war are fundamental and, consequently,
are applicable to all modes of warfare. In fact, however, it is not
irrelevant, for, heretofore, the minor differences in the art of war,
arising from the limitations and individual characteristics of the

216 The Reformation of War

forces employed, have appeared so opposite in nature, that,
during the last 400 years, a complete separation has arisen be-
tween the army and the navy, a separation which has produced
innumerable complexities which, during the last ten years, have
been further confounded b}' the introduction of a new mode of
war — air warfare.

Though it is a truism to state that the basic factor in war is
man, it is not generally recognized that whether man fights on
the land, or on the sea, or in the air, the elements of war are the
same, namely : moral, weapons, movement and protection ;
consequently, whatever mode of war is to be examined, in these
elements we find a common denominator to all three forces. If
this be accepted as correct, then I see no reason why warfare as a
whole should not be treated as one subject.

Personally I am of opinion that the principles of war,
enumerated in Chapter II., are as applicable to sea warfare and to
air warfare as to land warfare, irrespective of the differences in
the three spheres of action in which these three modes of warfare
take place, the spheres of sea, air and land. The ultimate ob-
jective is the same, namely, the maintenance of policy. The two
great means are the same — offensive and defensive action, whether
material, physical, or moral. The methods of potentiating these
means are identical — concentration and economy, movement and
surprise, and the ultimate co-ordination is the same — co-operation
within fleets, armies and air forces and co-operation between them
as parts of one single defence force. It is this co-operation which,
I consider, forms the foundation of grand tactics, not as hereto-
fore interpreted — the major battle plan of an army, or of a navy,
or of an air force, but of an army, a navy and an air force inti-
mately co-operating in order to attain a common objective — the
maintenance of policy.

In minor tactics, the one supreme problem which faces the
fighting man, irrespective of the service to which he belongs, is,
as I have already pointed out, " to give blows without receiving
them." This I will call the compound of " secure hitting." In
minor strategy the basic compound is " secure movement."

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 217

Upon these two compounds, which are derived from the three
elements of war — weapons, movement and protection — is the
whole art of battle founded, and according to their perfection is
the remaining element, the moral of the fighting men, maintained.
We thus see that, while the army, navy and air force are the pro-
tectors of the national moral, equally are weapons, movement and
protection the shield of the moral of the fighting men. Ulti-
mately, in war, the whole question of success may be whittled
down to one of security of moral, which, of all the elements of war,
is the most unstable, for a new weapon, a new means of movement,
or a new method of protection, if introduced as a complete sur-
prise, may effect a deroute among the staunchest of fighting forces.

To return to the compound of secure hitting, which forms the
corner-stone of minor tactics, the question now arises : how is
this hitting power to be applied ? In an army, navy, or air force
individually, security of hitting demands a close co-operation of
all arms in order to attain the grand tactical objective — the de-
struction of the enemy's fighting strength. When these forces
are combined in one plan, then, to the above co-operation must be
added a mutual co-operation between the three forces themselves.
This co-operation, whether within one force or between two or
three forces, is virtually the execution of the grand tactical plan
of battle or campaign ; and it is important to remember that a
plan is as necessary for a campaign as for a battle, and that, con-
sequently, every battle plan must form an economic part of the
general plan of campaign. In Chapter II., I have explained that
in this plan there are four grand tactical acts which may be carried
out either separately or in combination, namely, surprise, attri-
tion, envelopment and penetration. Visibly these acts are
equally applicable to all modes of warfare — sea, land, or air, and
whether made use of separately or combined, these acts constitute
the common denominator of the plan or idea of campaign.

The setting in motion of this plan is usually called strategy,
that is the secure movement of troops to that point of decision at
which it is hoped to defeat the enemy. In the past, in spite of the
universal nature of the principles of war, there has been a land

218 The Reformation of War

strategy, a sea strategy, and the future may possibly see added to
these two, an air strategy. This process of separating strategy
into three compartments I believe to be fundamentally un-
economical and a direct violation of the principle of economy of
forces as applied to a united army, navy and air force, and hence a
weakening of the principle of the objective. This separation is
faulty, consequently I will now consider the strategy of all three
forces as combined.

The importance of grand strategy and all that it includes
cannot be over-estimated at the present time, for in the whole
course of history the necessity for economy has never been more
vital ; further, in its true meaning, efficiency cannot exist without
it. At any time and irrespective of prosperity, a nation can only
afford to spend a certain sum of money as an insurance against
war and ultimately, when war occurs, as a safeguard against defeat.
For this sum to be economically spent, not only must all obsoles-
cence be weeded out of the defence forces, but no overlapping can
be tolerated. During war, nothing is so uneconomical as im-
provization ; consequently, our peace strategy must formulate
our war strategy, by which I mean that there cannot be two
forms of strategy, one for peace and one for war, without wastage
— moral, physical and material, when war breaks out. The first
duty of the grand strategist is, therefore, to appreciate the com-
mercial and financial position of his country ; to discover what its
resources and liabilities are. Secondly, he must understand the
moral characteristics of his countrymen, their history, pecu-
liarities, social customs and system of government, for all these
quantities and qualities form the pillars of the military arch
which it is his duty to construct. Unlike the strategist of the
past, the grand strategist of to-day must no longer be a mere
servant of his ever-changing government, but a student of the
permanent characteristics and slowly changing institutions of
the nation to which he belongs, and which he is called upon to
secure against war and defeat. He must, in fact, be a learned
historian and a far-seeing philosopher, as well as a skilful strategist
and tactician. To-day such men are rare to come by, because

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 219

nations understand practically nothing of the science of war.
Understanding nothing, there is no incentive without or within
an army to produce a breed of strategists who may be classed as
men of science. In this respect the Germans went further than
all other nations, and, during the Great War, it was the firmness of
their grand strategy which formed the foundation of their mag-
nificent endurance.

The transmission of power in all its forms, in order to maintain
policy, is the aim of grand strategy, its actual employment being
the domain of grand tactics. While strategy is more particularly
concerned with the movement of armed masses, grand strategy,
including these movements, embraces the motive forces which
lie behind them both — material and psychological. From the
grand strategical point of view, it is just as important to realize
the quality of the moral power of a nation, as the quantity of its
man-power, or to establish moral communication by instituting a
common thought — the will to win throughout the nation and the
fighting services. The grand strategist we see is, consequently,
also a politician and a diplomatist.

While, in times of peace, one of the main duties of the grand
strategist is the movement of ideas and the accumulation of moral
energies, his reserves for war, in times of war an equally im-
portant duty is economically to release these terrific forces, which
constitute the true capital of the nation, so that in the form of a
moral explosive they may impel forward, like projectiles, the
fighting services. To do so economically he must be in possession
of a plan of action, which cannot be outlined unless the powers of
all foreign countries and their influence on his own are known, for
otherwise he will not be in a position, grand tactically, to direct
the forces at his disposal along the economic and military lines of
least resistance leading towards the moral reserve of his antago-
nist, the bulk of which lies in the moral of the civil population. On
his grand tactics, it is for his subordinates, under his guidance,
to formulate the minor or battle tactics of the three fighting forces
which will be used to attack the enemy's forces physically, econo-
mically and morally. Without a plan, none of these things can be

220 The Reformation of War

economically accomplished ; consequently, we see that, of all the
principles of war, the principle of the objective is the first.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the resting time of the grand
strategist is during war, for it is during peace that he works
and labours. During peace time he not only calculates the
resources in men, supplies and moral forces of all possible enemies,
but, having weighed them, he, unsuspected by the enemy,
undermines them by a plan. He attacks the enemy's man and
weapon power by advising his government, (i.) to enter into alliance
with other nations, (ii.) to limit his material resources by gaining
actual or fiscal control over commodities the enemy's country
cannot produce ; and, according to their ethics, his government
attacks the enemy morally either by fostering sedition in his
country or by winning over the approval of the world by the
integrity of its actions.

To war plans there can be no finality, for every nation is a
potential enemy, and, as the policy of each nation changes, so
must the plan change with it, and whatever the plan may be,
the commercial and moral powers of the nation should not be
squandered or degraded when it is put into force. Finally, the
plan or plans having been agreed upon, the fighting forces should
unitedly be trained to carry them out.

From the above, the reader will have gauged that the grand
strategist is the unifier of military action in all its forms, and that,
consequently, unity of command is the keystone of the military
arch, which is supported on the civil abutments of prosperity
and national character. For one man to carry out the multi-
farious duties of the grand strategist is manifestly impossible,
but for more than one man to attempt to give direction to these
duties, when combined in a plan of war, is manifestly absurd.
Ultimately, however vast and stupendous are the forces to be
employed, one man must direct them, just as the brain of man
directs the far more intricate mechanism of the human body, and
directs it so perfectly that the majority of its functions are
unconscious. To attempt to direct an army by means of a council
or committee is to seek order through anarchy. Many-headed

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 221

monsters cannot direct, and, like Cerberus or the Hydra, they fall
victims to individual initiative.

Though in war, whether of hundreds or millions, whether
of a united nation or of allied powers, whether solely on land
or simultaneously on the sea and in the air, one man must
direct. This in no way prohibits every able man in the
country, if needs be, participating in the development of the
plan.

Though, throughout this book, I have attempted in the main
to examine the problems of the future tendencies of war from
a general aspect, I now intend to examine national direction in
war from the British standpoint, because I am better acquainted
with this point of view than with any other, and have not the
space at my disposal to inquire into the military organization
of each nation in turn.

The present direction is as follows : The British Empire
is virtually a commonwealth of free nations united ethically
under a constitutional monarchy. At home its peoples are ruled
by a representative government, which is directed by one man,
the Prime Minister, assisted by a cabinet composed, for the most
part, of heads of government departments. As this cabinet
possesses no military member, it, at times, seeks strategical advice
from the Committee of Imperial Defence, which, theoretically,
can place before it three unco-ordinated military opinions — that
of the army, navy and air force. These three forces have no
directing head or heads, each being controlled by a council
composed of heads of military, naval, or air force departments.

If we now turn from the purely British aspect of Imperial
defence to that of the whole Empire, we shall find that no real
system exists whereby defence can be co-ordinated in peace
time and directed in war. The Committee of Imperial Defence
cannot possibly accomplish this co-ordination since it is in no
sense an Imperial committee, but merely a defence secretariat
of the British Cabinet, and an indifferent one at that, since its
members are politicians and are not even permanently appointed.
In order to make good, to some extent, its lack of power, from

222 The Reformation of War

time to time, in the past, Imperial Conferences have been as-
sembled in London at which questions of defence have been
discussed. As these Conferences are in the main political
assemblies, and as they only meet at several years' interval,
they can scarcely be considered as a sufficient means of co-
ordinating the security of the Empire ; further they offer no
means whatever in directing Imperial strategy during war
time.

In considering any system of reformation, the first fact to
bear in mind is that the Dominions are free nations and, being
young communities, are rightly very jealous of their indepen-
dence ; secondly, that every Imperial war has not only accen-
tuated this independence but has increased their military
responsibilities. Their security is, consequently, becoming more
and more their paramount political question ; nevertheless, this
question can only be solved by a close yet free co-operation
between them and the Mother Country. Our problem is, there-
fore, not one of amalgamation but of combination. We cannot
possibly hope to create one Imperial defence force under British
control, but what we can hope to do is to agree to a general
reformation of each existing force so that, when war breaks out,
each force may be, if necessary, like the pieces of a puzzle, rapidly
fitted together to form one picture. In order that this may
be accomplished, I suggest the following reformation :

(i.) The creation of a permanent Imperial Council divided
into three great departments.

(a) An economic department to consider the resources,
commerce, finance, trade and industry of the Empire
as a whole.

(b) An ethical department to consider the psychology
of the various Dominions, India and the Colonies,
their customs, traditions and legislation.

(c) A defence department to consider the security of the
Empire as a whole and to suggest the military policy
for each part.

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 223

As this Imperial Council will represent a League of British
Nations its powers can only be advisory, nevertheless its know-
ledge and prestige will be so great that each separate government
in the Empire will be compelled not only to listen to its advice
but to think twice before rejecting it.

As the problem before me is a military one, I will only consider
the third of the above departments, which I will call the Imperial
general staff. This staff should consist of a body of experts
drawn from the defence forces of the whole Empire, and their
duty should be to elaborate a policy of Imperial defence to fit
the ethical and economic conditions as submitted to them by
departments (a) and (b).

(ii.) The next problem is the execution of this policy. To-
day, without considering the Colonies and the Mandatory
territories, we have three separate defence forces at home
and three in India, and each of the self-governing Dominions
has three, though in come cases they are partially combined.
Virtually the Empire possesses six armies, six navies and six
air forces, or in the future will possess them. To co-ordinate
and direct eighteen separate forces, all of which overlap, is
indeed a complex problem. I suggest, therefore, that each
government should establish one combined defence force
under a Ministry of Defence and place this defence force
under the direction of one man — a generalissimo or grand
strategist who will carry out the policy of the Imperial
general staff if this policy be accepted by his govern-
ment.

(iii.) In order to assist the generalissimo in converting
the policy into a grand strategical plan, I suggest the
creation of a combined general staff, that is a staff the
members of which are drawn from the army, navy and air
force.

(iv.) In order that this plan may be put into rapid execution
and its direction be controlled, I am of opinion that each
army, navy and air force should come under the direct

224 The Reformation of War

orders of a commander-in-chief who will be in constant
touch with the generalissimo.

(v.) In order to assist these commanders-in-chief, three
general staffs should be established, the duty of which will
be to work out, in accordance with the grand strategical
plan, the grand tactical operations of their respective
forces.

(vi.) Lastly, the establishment of a group of departments
under each general staff is necessary in order to carry out
the plans of the commander-in-chief and to administer to
the needs of the services concerned.

I will now consider, as briefly as possible, first the political
position of the grand strategist and, secondly, the main duties
of a combined general staff, and, in the next Chapter, among
other things, the organization and duties of the general staff
of an army.

The grand strategist or generalissimo can either be placed
under a minister of defence or he may become an ex-party war
minister himself, his position in the cabinet not being affected
by changes of government but by tenure of appointment, which,
however, should be elastic enough to permit of an able man
holding the appointment for a number of years, as von Moltke
did in Germany, for rapid changes of appointment carry with
them changes of administration.

As a cabinet minister, the generalissimo will be able to keep
himself in close touch with the policy of the government. The
main danger of such an appointment is that he may be persuaded
to meddle with politics, but this could be guarded against by
restricting his executive powers to military subjects alone. As a
cabinet minister his object should be to understand the policy
of the government rather than to influence it, so that he may
be in a position to outline to the combined general staff the
leading political factors which must inevitably influence national
defence, for without this knowledge no true economy can be
effected.

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 225

The combined general staff itself should consist of a chief
supported by a small group of officers drawn from the army,
navy and air force, the duty of this staff being to think and to
plan. In order to assist it in its work, two departments, namely,
an intelligence and a finance department should be established
under it, as well as such routine departments as its duties may
require. The intelligence department should be divided into
a civil branch and a military branch : the first comprising legal,
commercial, industrial and scientific sub-departments ; and the
second, military, naval, aeronautical and geographical sub-
departments. The finance department should consist of costing
and auditing branches for all three forces.

I do not propose here to enter into the detail of the internal
organization of this office of national defence, but instead I will
merely outline what I believe to be the main duties of the combined
general staff and its subordinate departments.

The generalissimo will place before the combined general
staff three quantities : the policy of the government, the sum of
money voted by Parliament for the defence forces and the
direction the military plan is to take in order to secure the policy
by means of the money voted.

The combined general staff will then analyse the problems
involved, obtaining all information required from the intelligence
branch. From this information this staff will first evolve a
grand strategical plan, then one or more grand tactical plans,
and lastly a series of instructions based upon this work. These,
on completion, will be handed over to the finance department
to be costed, and will be modified if money is insufficient to meet
them.

The grand strategical plan is the most important, for on it
will depend the respective strengths of the army, navy and
air force and their geographical distribution, in accordance with
which the grand tactical plans will be formulated. Once agreed
to, the various grand tactical plans, with the instructions apper-
taining to them, will be passed to the three commanders-in-chief,
and, in order of priority, will be worked out in detail by their

15

226 The Reformation of War

general staffs, bulk sums of money being credited to the com-
manders-in-chief to pay for the maintenance of the troops,
ships, etc., required to carry out the plans. Once the grand
strategy of the Empire has been settled, the plan should yearly be
amended according to any changes in policy or finance, and
according to the innumerable changes in industry, commerce
and science, at home and in foreign nations and armies ; all these
changes being carefully codified by the intelligence department
and notified to the combined general staff.

The bulk economy which would be effected by unifying all
military effort and directing it towards the solution of one pro-
blem must be apparent to all who possess any knowledge of the
internal friction, waste of time, effort and money of ministries.
These great spending departments, through no fault of their own,
are forced into mutual financial competition without reference to
strategy ; consequently, enormous overlapping of effort takes
place, such as in the provision of supplies, the acquisition of
information and the training of personnel. This is largely due
to a lack of unified direction, which is the foundation of all con-
centration of power, efficiency and economy. In the new organi-
zation proposed, all these great spending departments could be
enormously reduced in size, and this reduction would not only
mean a financial saving, but would result in an economy of time,
and, consequently, would lead to a greater output of military
efficiency ; for the smaller the human plant the quicker is the
output of effort. It is for this reason that every efficient organiza-
tion must ultimately be directed by one man.

The question now arises, how is this director — the generalis-
simo, who will possess an unchallenged power of " Yes " or " No,"
to be discovered. It is quite possible, even probable, that to-day
in no single nation does such a man exist. Then the solution to
this problem is that he must be created, just as the queen bee is
developed from one of the humble workers of the hive. On
mental food must he and his staff be reared, and this food must be
provided at a War College of a type which to-day does not exist
in any country ; for up to the present no country, however

The Meaning of Grand Strategy 227

military it may be, has evolved a science of war — a true science
and not a collection of maxims, shibboleths and dogmas. If this
is doubted, then let the student re-peruse the various Field Service
Regulations of 1914 and ponder over the events of the Great War.

From this university of war, as years pass by, will be turned
out a body of officers who are capable of understanding warfare
as a whole, and from whom may be selected the future generalis-
simo— the grand strategist, the military director in peace, and its
military dictator next time the nation is called upon to fight for
its existence.

Napoleons are not born, Napoleons are manufactured from
able men. Napoleon, possessing all the genius he did, would have
been but a good general had he not simultaneously possessed
liberty of action in order to direct his genius according to the
necessities of war.

We want no Napoleons in peace time, no military controllers
of the nation's policy ; the nation must settle this itself, for it is,
in the light of our present-day civilization, the right and might of
the people to do so. But in war, when Cosmos is dethroned by
Chaos, when whole nations grow demented, when the crowd mind
sways the multitude,, a nation requires the man, because a
study of the history of war, from Cyrus to Marshal Foch, has
proved to us, by many a bloody lesson, that the free untrammelled
director in war is the dictator of victory.

Here then is an immense problem which faces the civilized
world to-day — the problem of grand strategy, or the economy of
military forces. Whether the last war is the last of wars, a condi-
tion which has never existed on earth, we cannot say for certain,
but we can hazard that it is not. Supposing that this hazard
be correct, is any great nation to-day, after the appalling lessons
of the last war, a war which cost the world millions of dead and
thousands of millions of money, and the gloomy repercussions of
which surround us and are likely to continue surrounding us for
half a century yet to come, merely going to slide back into the
complacency of 1914 ? A year which has long become a military
mummy, a thing dead and wound up in an archaic past. Should

15*

228 The Reformation of War

we not instead think big and bigger still, never being content
with our thoughts, never being content with our theories or with
our practices, ever weeding them through and costing their values
in terms of grand strategy ? We should, for discontent with
custom and prejudice is the quintessence of mental youth.

XII

THE REFORMATION OF THE ARMY

HAVING in the last Chapter fashioned a mould, rough though
it be, wherein may be modelled the grand strategical brain
of the combined defence forces, it is my intention, in the present
Chapter, to attempt to fashion yet another mould wherein may be
cast a new army. As a soldier, educated and trained solely for
war on land, I realize that it would, under existing conditions, be
considered an impertinence if I attempted to create a mould for
the navy and air force as well. That I should be able to do so is
too rational to be questioned ; consequently, there can be little
doubt that my deficiencies in this respect point to a serious lacuna
in the existing scheme of military education.*

Granted a grand strategical brain, the first question which
arises is the economical expenditure of its energy. Energy
means action, and as misdirected action means loss of power, I
will first make certain of the premises upon which I intend to
base my military reformation.

The Great War of 1914-1918, as I hope I have clearly shown,
opened a new epoch in military history, the epoch of scientific
warfare, the two leading inventions being gas and tanks.

There can be no disputing it that this war proved :

(i.) That large conscript armies, based on muscle-power, have
two fundamental defects : extreme vulnerability due to super-
ficial area ; extreme immobility due to bulk. The first neces-
sitates the seeking of underground protection, which increases the

* In my opinion the reformation of the navy and air force can be carried
out on approximately the same lines as laid down in this Chapter; consequently,
a combination of certain training establishments, etc., is possible. This alone
demands the establishment of a combined general staff to carry it out.

229

230 The Reformation of War

second, which is further accentuated by armies being tied down to
roads and railways for their supply.

(ii.) That the petrol engine has not only reduced the human
target by enabling few men to do what many were required for,
and by enabling above-ground and mobile direct protection to be
introduced (with the result that wastage of man-power is lessened),
but that roads may be dispensed with and mobility of manoeuvre
and supply increased.

The fundamental fact to be deduced from these premises is
that mobility, carrying with it enhanced offensive and defensive
power, and not numbers, is the line of economic direction along
which future preparation, that is the remodelling of the army,
should proceed.

The object of the military forces of the Empire, as I have re-
peated again and again, is to secure Imperial stability, conse-
quently the army must not be looked upon simply as a means of
limiting the ravages of war, but as an instrument which will prevent
war occurring.

Based on this objective, the remodelling of the existing forces
should create, within the limits of the money available, a military
organization of the highest efficiency and with powers of efficient
development along the economic line. Under existing conditions
the purposes of the army, in order of precedence, are :

(i.) The maintenance of the integrity of the Empire from
internal disruption.

(ii.) The security of the Empire from external policy and
foreign invasion.

(hi.) The power of producing in a great war the most potent
scientific weapon, within the limits of money, that it is possible to
create.

The means at our disposal are our existing forces, which form
a conglomerate and incoherent mass, not only of separate arms,
but also of similar arms in various categories of efficiency. Our
present army is a monster carrying with it all kinds of rudimentary
organs and ever sprouting new horn3.

To refashion this Hydra, rational military thought is required ;

The Reformation of the Army 231

consequently, however perfect may be the grand strategical
brain, the military spinal cord must also be efficient. I will now
consider this sub-brain or ganglion.

The most perfect organization which exists in this world is the
body of man, at the summit of which is to be found a directing
organ — the brains, securely ensconced in a bone box and kept
warm by a mat of hair. In an army, this organ is represented by
the commander (the deciding will) and his staff (the assisting
faculties). Before the Great War, our general staff officers
worked but did not think scientifically. They were slaves of the
past in place of being masters of the future. Had the general
staff, in 1913, been a true brain, they could not have argued for a
whole year about the trajectory of a rifle and failed to equip in-
fantry battalions with more than two machine guns.* Had they
thought deeply on the most important tactical problem in war
" how to give blows without receiving them," we should have had
tanks twenty or more years ago. Had they even been liberal in
judgment and open-minded, they would not have paid such little
consideration to so many of the new inventions the war eventually
proved essential. The general staff were and, in many respects,
still are monastic in mind. They accept dogmas which bear but
an antiquated relationship to truth and repeat rituals which be-
long to a dead epoch. They do so not because they lack ability
and brain-power, but because their ability and brain-power are
swamped by routine and lack the direction of a commander-in-
chief, a thinking head who, working under the generalissimo of the
combined general staff, will be in a position to vivify the whole
nervous system of the army.

Granted an efficient commander-in-chief, the next question
which arises is : how should his staff be organized ?

What has it to administer ? An army ! An army, as I

* In the autumn of 1913, as a brigade machine-gun officer, I was so convinced
that an increase in machine guns was necessary that I suggested officially
that each battalion should be provided with eight, and that each infantry
brigade should possess a company of eight guns. I was informed that this was
impossible as it would mean " a reduction in the number of bayonets."

232 The Reformation of War

have shown in Chapter II., is a compound of certain elements ;
therefore I will think in terms of these.

He and his staff must think in terms of men, protection,
weapons and movement. This gives us four departments of the
staff.

Department A {Men) to deal with recruiting, moral, discipline
(rewards and punishments), health and mobilization.

Department B [Protection) to deal with housing, feeding,
clothing, ammunition and lands.

Department C {Weapons) to deal with research, design, experi-
ment, production and repairs.

Department D {Movement) to deal with the organization of
road, rail, water, cross-country and air movement.

As protection is a tactical word, I will substitute for it
" supply," and in this there is nothing illogical, supply being the
stable, that is protective, base of all military organization.

As the elements have to be compounded before they become of
practical value, and as this compound has to be paid for, to the
above departments must be added two others :

Department E {Operations) to deal with intelligence, planning,
organization and training.

Department F {Finance) to deal with costing, auditing and
accounting.

Such are the six great departments of the staff, and, outwardly,
they do not differ very much from the present Adjutant-General's,
Quartermaster-General's, Master-General of the Ordnance's,
General Staff and Financial Departments, except that a separate
department for Movement has been added. Now I come to the
keystone which is at present lacking in the military arch. All
these branches of the staff are separate unities unless a co-
ordinating body is placed over them. This body I will call the
general staff, because it is general and not, as at present, special
and particular ; it should be placed under a chief general staff
officer, the right-hand man of the commander-in-chief. Before
examining its duties, I will first outline the general organization
of the departments of the staff which it controls.

The Reformation of the Army 233

Each department should be organized in three sections :

(i.) A thinking section.
(ii.) A liaison section,
(iii.) A routine section.

The thinking section should form the brains of its department,
and, working on the orders of the general staff, should apply the
policy (principles) received according to existing circumstances
(conditions). The liaison section (senses) should watch the
application of this policy, criticize the work of the army (muscles)
and keep the thinking section alive to local and changing con-
ditions. The routine section (nerves and system of circulation)
should deal with all matters of routine, renovate and clear the
whole department of waste products and constitute the channel
of correspondence.

In order that logical thought may be established, each thinking
section should be organized in three sub-sections :

(i.) A historical sub-section to draw deductions from the past,
(ii.) An economic sub-section to evaluate the present,
(iii.) A planning sub-section to shape these deductions and
values to the future.

Now I will return to the general staff, which should be similarly
organized. Its duties are to convert the policy received from
the combined general staff into a military plan ; it, consequently,
must be in the closest touch with the combined general staff, and,
in order to co-ordinate and systematize its work, it must also be
in close touch with the various thinking sections of the depart-
ments of the staff. It should look at the army as a whole and,
when necessary, reduce the thought of the various thinking
sections to book form for the instruction of the army. The
present system of producing manuals written by specialists,
soused in one idea, does not tend towards efficient co-operation
between the arms, and is apt to lead to military pedantry and
tactical bunions.

234

The Reformation of War

A question of the highest present importance is the organiza-
tion of Department C, for it constitutes the weapon-producing
department of the New Model Army. The personnel will have
to be a mixture of civilians and soldiers, and these will have to
work in the closest liaison with civil scientists. Besides the
general organization outlined above, its creative duties should
be subdivided as in the diagram.

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Under its Headquarters should be established three sub-

The Reformation of the Army 235

departments — Research, Design and Experiment, which can either
deal with their respective subjects directly or through civil
firms. The research sub-department should be divided according
to the sciences, and the remaining two according to the weapons,
machines, etc., the army will require. For example, the general
staff considers that a Mark X machine gun is needed. It forwards
these requirements to Headquarters C Department, which consults
Research, if research work is required, and eventually passes
them on to Design. Design reduces these requirements to
specifications and drawings and forwards these to Experiment.
Experiment produces Mark X up to specification or refers it
back to Design if it cannot do so. Once the new weapon is
produced, the next step is to test it out, i.e., the weapon must
be made " fool-proof " and " campaign worthy." Experts are
too skilled to carry out this work, consequently, Mark X is sent
to the school dealing with machine guns and put through ex-
haustive trials. This school reports on its suitability through
Department E to the general staff, which accepts Mark X or
refers it to Department C for improvement or alteration.

Though, in practice, the procedure cannot be so completely
cut and dried as the above, and in many cases civil firms will
have to carry out the work, the process outlined guarantees
that all new weapons are attuned to the limitations of the private
soldier and that their inter-relationship is co-ordinated, as they
all originate from one brain — the general staff.

From the above it will be seen that the responsibilities of the
general staff are considerable, and, in my own opinion, the type
of officer required for this work scarcely exists to-day. In the
past the general staff have dealt chiefly with military metaphysics,
and if the nature of future warfare as outlined in this book is
considered probable, then the general staff officer will have to
deal very largely with military mechanics. He will have to
study modern engineering journals and the old prints of hundreds
of years ago depicting flame-projectors and gas bombs ; these
will set vibrating " brain-waves," which will awaken new design.
He will have to study the evolution of weapons from the sarissa

236 The Reformation of War

to the aerial torpedo. In fact, he must become an adept in war-
tool biology.

The present Staff Colleges do not permit of the training of
such officers. In 1914 their teaching was, from the point of view
of scientific warfare, antiquated. They were routine schools
looking back on past wars, with scarcely a glance at the future.
What is required is a total revision of their military outlook.
They must be brought to visualize that the past is only a road
to the future, that to-day the epoch of all former wars, an epoch
based on muscular force, is rapidly closing down, and that a new
epoch, based on mechanical energy, is rapidly opening up.
Consequently, that, in a few years time, the army of 1914
will be as obsolete as the army of 1814 and far more expen-
sive.

Unless we have commanders and staft officers who can grasp
this and all that it portends, we, a generation hence, shall be
fighting battles with an army of t.hree-deckers in place of an army
of battle cruisers ; meanwhile the commercial loss will be appalling
and our political stability the weathercock of every international
breeze.

In order to establish a new creed of war we require a new
military testament. I ask the reader to look back and examine
our pre-war training manuals. What will he see ? A tangle
of valuable information wanting in logical reference or simplicity
of relationship and dull beyond belief. On what central idea
should the new testament of war be written ? On the idea of
men and not on that of weapons, for it is men who read books
and not guns and rifles, and men, being living beings, require
" live " books, not compendium^ of uncompromising dullness
and polished platitudes.

As regards men, as soldiers, there are four main types : com-
manders, leaders, led and administrators ; consequently, the
new testament of military knowledge must follow suit.

(i.) Books for Commanders. A manual on " The Science and
Art of War," deduced from an analytical study of the

The Reformation of the Army 237

history of war, and a manual on " The Science and Art of
Military Training," based on the principles laid down in
the first manual.

(ii.) Books for Leaders. A manual on " Combined Tactics,"
and another on " Combined Training," based on the two
former works for commanders.

(iii.) Books for the Led. On the general knowledge contained
in "Combined Tactics" and "Combined Training," a
" Battle and Training Manual " should be written for each
arm.

(iv.) Books for the Staff. A manual on the " Economics of
Administration " and another on the " Psychology of
Administration." In these two books should be included
all staff duties from those of an adjutant upwards.

The above list is not formidable, but once again it is quality
and not quantity which is required — quality set forth logically
and humanly, for man, being human, will not read dull books
when instead he can read " live " newspapers.

Having now provided a mould for the remodelling of the spinal
cord of the army, I will turn to the muscles of the new military
organization. I have written enough to render it needless to
prove again that the entire tendencies of military evolution are
directed towards the replacement of muscle-power by machine-
power. Mechanical movement, consequently, is our pivot of
reformation.

This reformation must of necessity be a slow one and, before it
can be begun, a period of experimental work will have to be
undergone ; consequently, every army to-day requires a military
laboratory, an experimental formation large enough to include
all existing arms.

In 1803, through the wisdom of the Duke of York, an experi-
mental brigade was established at Shorncliffe under the command
of one of the most able and humane officers in the British Army
— Major-General Sir John Moore. The work carried out at this
camp had a stupendous influence on the Napoleonic wars, for

238 The Reformation of War

by degrees the tactics evolved were adopted by Wellington, and
by means of these tactics did he beat the French wherever
he met them. On the fifty-third anniversary of the battle
of Waterloo, Colonel Gawler (52nd Light Infantry), who had
seen in the field, between 1810 and 1815, the practical working
of the Shorncliffe training, wrote to his son :

" With this system (Sir John Moore's), the old Duke out-manoeuvred
every army opposed to him, and never lost a battle. To the very
end of the day (Waterloo), we manoeuvred by well- formed battalions,
as smoothly and as rapidly as we should have done on Southsea
Common. While from the beginning of the day French elan, like soda
water, had to be corked up in masses. The moment the density was
rudely broken, all went off in smoke and confusion."*

To-day every civilized army requires such a brigade as
Sir John Moore's, a military laboratory wherein to test the new
against the old ; but as a laboratory, however well equipped,
is useless without a skilled chemist, so also is an experimental
brigade useless without a John Moore. Further, as the chemist
within certain financial limitations, must be given a free hand
to carry out his experiments, and as he cannot do so if the
whole of his appliances are changed at short intervals, so must
the commander of the experimental brigade be given a free
hand, and so also must his brigade be a permanent one, his
men and means changing as little as possible.

Granted the above mechanism of research and granted
that reformation is to pivot on the internal combustion engine,
then the object of an experimental brigade is in nature a dual
one :

(i.) To test out the existing organization.

(ii.) To test out the theories of cross-country movement.

This work will enable us :

(i.) To discover the tactical and administrative influences of
the new arms on the old.

* " The Oxfordshire Light Infantry Chronicle," 1901, p. 162.

The Reformation of the Army 239

(ii.) To work out the proportions of the new arms to the old.

(iii.) To set together these proportions in a definite organiza-
tion.

(iv.) To discover the time necessary wherein to train the
new organization.

(v.) To enable us to estimate the cost of the new organiza-
tion, not only in terms of money but in terms of increased
efficiency.

In my opinion it is very necessary to separate idea from
action, that is theory from practice, for idea should be the
product of the study and not of the laboratory. Consequently,
idea should be evolved outside the brigade, and, as ideas will
affect the whole of the defence forces, they should of necessity
be originated by the combined general staff. Once originated,
ideas should, as far as the army is concerned, filter through three
examining bodies. First, the War College, where they will
be considered from the aspect of the three defence forces com-
bined ; secondly, the Tactical University (which I will explain
later) , where they will theoretically be compared with the existing
values of all arms separately and combined ; thirdly, the Staff
College, where the changes in tactics suggested will be organized
and administration shaped to meet them. When these three
processes have been completed, the refined idea should then
be handed over to the experimental unit to test out, and the
staff and students of the Staff College and Tactical University
should be kept in close touch with the experiments — the action
resulting. Directly the new idea has been satisfactorily tested
out, it should be adopted by the general staff and the army
modified accordingly.

As the whole existing military organization will have to be
reformed, the work to be carried out is enormous ; consequently,
some logical plan of procedure must be established, for other-
wise time and effort, let alone money, will be squandered. At
what end or part of the army are we to begin our demolition
and reconstruction ? This question is a very easy one to answer

240 The Reformation of War

if we write down the main needs of the soldier in order of
importance. They are :

(i.) The first requirement of the soldier is to live — he requires

food and lodging,
(ii.) The second requirement is protection while he approaches

the enemy,
(iii.) The third requirement is fighting power, in order to

defeat the enemy.

We should, therefore, begin by mechanicalizing our trans-
port. This is the simplest problem, being purely administrative
and not tactical ; meanwhile our existing artillery and infantry
can remain much as they are.

Secondly, we should mechanicalize our artillery — our main
protective weapon, and a simpler arm to deal with than infantry,
who can still continue to remain somewhat as they are.

Thirdly, we should mechanicalize our infantry by placing
some in tanks — the attackers of positions, and some in cross-
country " buses " — the holders of positions.

Surely this evolution is an economical one, for we cannot
expect our present army to adapt itself to a new means of
movement in two or three years ; in my opinion, accepting
man as he is, a very conservative animal, the whole process
will take about a military generation — say twenty years.

Having now arrived at a logical plan of action, the next
question is the size of the army we wish to create. Hitherto
the size of the army has borne little relationship to national
needs, because defence policy has been built upon expedients
and not on principles. Before the recent war, why did the
Home Army consist of six divisions, why not four or five or seven
or eight or eighty ? The late Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson
was never tired of repeating that there was no military reason
for six divisions — none ! In fact the reason had nothing to
do with military requirements, for it was based on unemploy-
ment in the civil labour markets. Before the war it was found
possible to recruit on an average 30,000 to 35,000 unemployed

The Reformation of the Army 241

or unemployable men yearly. Such numbers would enable
six divisions at home to train reinforcements for a certain
number of units abroad, consequently six divisions were
considered sufficient. There was no military reason — none !

The Great War eventually required between seventy and
eighty divisions. To suggest such a number to-day would be
foolish, because we are not faced by a great war problem ; our
problem is not to fight another World War but to maintain the
integrity of the Empire. What does the maintenance of this
integrity entail ? I will repeat the answer yet again :

(i.) First, domestic peace.

(ii.) Secondly, power to win small wars.

(iii.) Thirdly, power to prevent or win great wars.

I will, therefore, from the point of view of reformation deal
with these three problems in turn.

As I have already pointed out, the problem of internal defence
is a fairly simple one, as rioters and rebels are usually badly
armed. Police work presupposes the rapid movement of small
bodies of men so armed that they can break up hostile assemblies,
and, consequently, prevent them from solidifying into organized
form ; for the first step, in order to quell a revolution, is to
keep it fluid or mobile — in other words to deny it stability,
without which it cannot for long exist.

The only satisfactory way to carry this out is to organize
dispersion of force prior to the emergency, and this is best
accomplished by establishing over the country in question a
series of police posts which are sufficiently stable to withstand
attack and sufficiently mobile to assist each other.

Having no firm precedent to work on, I will start with a
theoretical example. I will take an area of country six hundred
miles long and three hundred miles wide which is in a disturbed
condition, and will then ask myself this question : " What will
be the most economical and efficient method of policing it ? "
To begin with I will split this rectangle up into two primary
squares, A B E F and B C D E, and each of these squares into four

16

242

The Reformation of War

major squares and each major square into four minor squares ;
each minor square will then have a side of seventy-five miles.

In the centre of each minor square I place a mobile group,
shown by a black dot, or I run two or four minor squares together
and place a dot in their centre. At K and M, I place a stable
reserve, shown by a small square. In order to arrive at some
basis of calculation, I suggest a force of fifty mounted men as
sufficient to patrol each minor square, and for a rectangle twice
this number, and for a square four times the size of the minor
square (e.g. square nrso) four times this number. It then will

A

B

H

I
J

50
15

100

30

50
15

m

■L

2u0

60

30

7$0

50
15

100

30

50
c

15

H

be found that the whole area A C D F is divided into three
rectilineal figures, namely A C e 1, 1 e f k and k f D F. These figures
contain the following mobile forces : 400, 800 and 400 mounted
men, which in principle is sound, because this organization
permits of a strong backbone of police running through the centre
of the country.

The above comprises the mobile element, but as mobility
should always operate from stability, I will add two armoured
cars (crews 15 men), preferably of a cross-country type, to every
50 mounted men. This will enable these men to be supported by
48 armoured cars.

At K and M, I place two mechanical striking forces, the

The Reformation of the Army 243

object of which is to supply stability to the mobile outpost
organization. These forces I suggest should be organized as
follows :

(i.) One company of tanks — 12 machines, 140 personnel.

(ii.) One company of armoured cars — 12 machines, 140 per-
sonnel.

(hi.) One battery of mechanical gun carriers — 6 guns, 90
personnel.

(iv.) One flight of aeroplanes, 6 machines, 80 personnel.

(v.) One company of cross-country tractors, 12 machines,
80 personnel.

(vi.) One machine-gun company, 12 guns, 100 personnel.

(vii.) Signallers and sappers — 120 personnel.

The total fighting personnel will then be 750.
The combatant personnel of the entire police force will then
consist of the following :

(a) 1,600 mounted men.

(b) 1,860 mechanical troops.

The latter being equipped with 24 tanks, 72 armoured cars,
12 field guns, 12 aeroplanes, 24 cross-country tractors and 24
machine guns.

In normal conditions, the mechanical columns will remain
stationary, and the whole of the area A C D F will be patrolled
by the mounted men. Should rebellion break out, which any one
or more of the mobile groups is unable to suppress, these would
at once stabilize themselves in their defended posts and the
mechanical columns would move out and become the mobile
element of the police organization. As the rebels are unlikely
to possess weapons which will impede the movement of these
armoured forces, their effect should prove decisive.

I fully realize that, in practice, the policing of an unsettled
country is not so simple as depicted above ; that countries
are not rectangles, and that forces of men cannot sit in the
middle of hypothetical squares. Nevertheless, I now intend

16*

244 The Reformation of War

to apply my theory to the actual problem of Imperial security
in order to show that the principle of movement underlying it
is, as I believe, sound. If I am right, the adjustment of detail
to local circumstances becomes simply a matter of elementary
common-sense. As a datum point I will start with India, for
the security of India is our greatest military liability.

In 1913 the garrison of India was approximately as follows :

(i.) 76,000 British troops,
(ii.) 160,000 Indian troops (less reserves),
(hi.) 21,000 Imperial Service troops,
(iv.) 39,000 Volunteers.

In all some 300,000 men, of which the British and Indian
Armies cost about £21,000,000 yearly.

I will suppose that a tank exists which has a speed of 20
miles per hour on the flat, a radius of action of 400 miles, and that
it will run 3,000 miles before requiring to be overhauled.

India consists of some 1,800,000 square miles of land, of which
about 400,000 square miles may be deducted as sparsely inhabited
mountain and desert country. I will now apply my grid theory,
and divide 1,400,000 miles of country into squares of the side
of 300 miles. The quotient is approximately 16. I will call
the forces required to hold each of these squares — a mounted
regiment (800 men) and a mechanical battalion (930 men) ; then
for police work we shall require 16 regiments and 16 battalions.
It should be noted here that I am treating India as a thoroughly
unsettled country and so am assuming the worst case possible.

The next question is what is to happen if a small war breaks
out ? As it would be dangerous to withdraw the police force,
a central reserve must be established to meet such an eventuality.
The strength of this reserve army, I suggest, should be sixteen
mechanical units of say 930 strong each, these to be equipped
with the three main types of tanks which, in Chapter VIII., I
visualized future warfare would demand, namely, an artillery
tank, an infantry tank and a cavalry tank. As these units are

The Reformation of the Army 245

not generally suitable for garrison work or for all phases of
mountain warfare, a second line army must be maintained.
For this I suggest a force of four divisions of about 12,000 men
each. I will call this force the Garrison Army in order to dis-
tinguish it from the Mechanical Army, the units of which might
be organized as follows : One regiment to consist of two bat-
talions, one brigade of two regiments and one division of two
brigades. The strength of a mechanical division will then be
7,440 men. For purposes of administration I will add forty
per cent, to the total combatant strength.

The military forces required in India will then be :

(i.) 16 mounted police regiments (12,800 British and Indian),
(ii.) 2 mechanical police divisions (14,880 British),
(iii.) 2 mechanical reserve divisions (14,880 British),
(iv.) 4 garrison divisions (48,000 British and Indian),
(v.) Administrative personnel (36,224 British and Indian).

A total of 126,784 British and Indian soldiers, and not 236,000,
as was the case in 1913.

Outside India our main military responsibilities lie in Iraq
and Egypt ; one mechanical police division and eight mounted
police regiments should be sufficient for these countries, and, if
a small war breaks out and reinforcements are required, they
can be sent out either from India or from home.

The last question is that of a great war. Great wars do not
suddenly shake the world like an earthquake ; they occur about
once every fifty years and normally give a prolonged notice of
their advent. In preparing to meet them we require three things.

(i.) A body of men who can appreciate their growth and

predict the probable date of their outbreak,
(ii.) A thoroughly good foundation whereon to expand our

defence forces when the above body of men issue their

warning,
(iii.) Power of the most rapid expansion when the warning is

issued.

246 The Reformation of War

As regards the first, this is the duty of the generalissimo
and the combined general staff. The second and third I will
now consider.

As the foundation I suggest the following force :

(i.) 5 mechanical reserve divisions (37,200 men).

(ii.) 3 garrison divisions (36,000 men).

(iii.) Administrative personnel (29,280 men).

A total force of 102,480 men. The garrison divisions should
be so organized and trained that they can rapidly expand into
nine mechanical reserve divisions ; consequently, they should be
partly mechanicalized during peace time.

If the self-governing Dominions also mechanicalize part of their
military forces, there would appear to be no reason why Canada
should not raise two divisions (one possibly in cadre), Australia
one, and New Zealand and South Africa one between them.

For a great war we then arrive at a total of twenty mechanical
reserve divisions the power of which when compared to that of
existing divisions can only be thought of in terms of Dread-
noughts and three-deckers.

The above suggestions are admittedly crude. I have not
aimed at exactness in any form, but solely at illustrating a prin-
ciple of reformation — a foundation and a line of direction ; that
is all. I will now turn to my third requirement, power of ex-
pansion to frustrate or limit a great war.

In the past, power of expansion has been viewed almost
entirely from a physical and numerical standpoint — reserves of
men and materiel. This is, however, but one aspect of the
subject and not the chief one. Preparation to be scientific,
in my opinion, includes the following :

(i.) Military foresight. To any student of European history
between the years 1864 and 1914, it must be apparent that Ger-
many was organizing herself to upset the balance of world power,
and that all the causes of the recent war were sown prior to the
year 1900 ; further, that, between 1901 and 1914, pretexts to
declare war were constantly sought for by Germany. In England,

The Reformation of the Army 247

Lord Roberts and others saw this quite clearly ; yet as late as
1912, when this eminent soldier proposed the creation of a
national army, he was openly flouted by the general staff.*
Worse still, he was derided in the House of Commons, and still
worse, when, in 1912, Lord Haldane visited Berlin at the request
of the Kaiser, " the Kaiser demanded a free hand for European
conquests at the price of a friendly understanding with England.
England was asked to pledge herself to absolute neutrality in
the event of Germany being engaged in a war." On his return
what did he do ? In place of taking the nation into his con-
fidence, he hoodwinked the people, who only learnt the truth of
the situation in 1912 shortly after the battle of the Marne in
1914!

I maintain that these things must never be again, for un-
preparedness for war is a greater incentive to its outbreak than
over-preparation. Had we had, let us suppose, in 1908, a highly
trained combined general staff and a generalissimo of moral
courage, I imagine this is what he would have suggested to the
Prime Minister : " The balance of power is being upset because
Germany is adding to her immense army a formidable fleet,
and any nation which controls the sea as well as the land controls
the world. We rightly have not introduced conscription, for
had we done so the identical accusation I am now levelling
against Germany would have been levelled against us. Never-
theless, the situation is becoming so critical that, in my opinion,
you should take the nation into your confidence and then say to
Germany : ' We have tolerated your immense army long
enough ; we do not, however, intend to tolerate an immense German
navy as well, for we know that this must lead to a world war.
We do not want a world war, and, to prevent its outbreak or to
shorten its duration, we intend, while we are still strong enough
at sea to drive you off it and to occupy your colonies and capture
your trade, not only to lay down two keels to every one of yours,
but to raise an army of 1,000,000 men and to support whatever

* See " Our Requirements for Home Defence," The Army Review, Vol. III.,
July, 1912.

248 The Reformation of War

country you attack. But directly you reduce your fleet to its
1900 footing and cease increasing your army we will reduce our
army of 1,000,000 to its present numerical strength.' "

Such a jaw blow might have led to immediate war, which
could scarcely have been worse than the war of 1914-1918. It
might, however, have knocked the German project out of the
German head. But, it may be urged, our party political system
does not permit of such frank action ; then all I can say is that our
political system needs a thorough spring cleaning. The outbreak
of the Great War, in 1914, was due not only to German militarism
but to British pacifism. Both were equally to blame, one was
flint and the other was steel.

(ii.) National Registration. The whole of the civil population
should be registered for war according to their vocations, so that
when war breaks out a man who knows eleven languages is not
sent to St. Nazaire as a R.T.O. and a professor of English history
turned into a sanitary fatigue man. Each class should have its
mobilization centre and should come on to war pay on the out-
break of hostilities.

(iii.) Calculation of Resources. The entire resources of the
Empire should be scheduled for war, so that it may be known
exactly what these resources are and how deficits may be made
good, not only in order to assist military operations but to lessen
the unhinging of industry and commerce.

(iv.) Standardization of Factories. All factories, laboratories,
etc., should, within the limits of peace economy, be standardized
for war, so that, when war breaks out, they can easily be changed
from a peace footing to a war footing. The same process should
also be applied to means of movement by road, rail, sea and
canal.

The above I consider to be the main national preparations
for war, and in order to guarantee expansion of national force
before and after war has been declared. I will now turn to what
I believe to be the primary military preparative, namely, training,
and the power of accelerating training when war becomes im-
minent or after its outbreak.

The Reformation of the Army 249

Training in an army may be divided into two main categories :

(i.) Unit training (the training of individuals and units),
(ii.) School instruction (the education of instructors).

The first should be based on the following rule : No individual,
once he has finished his individual training, should be considered
fully trained until he can take the -place of his immediate superior.
Thus in a section of eight infantry men, there is one section com-
mander and seven followers. This section should not be con-
sidered trained until the section commander can command a
platoon and each of the seven men can command a section.
To the private soldier, thinking of the future is thinking of the
next grade. With a unit it is very much the same ; no unit should
be considered fully trained until it can co-operate with all other
units in the formation to which it belongs. This rule carries
with it the main power of military expansion, for every officer
and man right down to the private soldier will, when expansion
is ordered, be in the position to fill a grade above the one he
actually holds and instruct the grade below the one to which
he is promoted.

The second should strive at the attainment of the following
objective : the object of school instruction is first, to teach
men how to teach men, and secondly, to teach men what to teach
men. Every school, no matter what subject is taught in it,
should pay the greatest attention to human psychology.

I have already accentuated the vital importance of the creation
of a War College and a reformation of the Staff College. I now
will consider, not all necessary schools, but the co-ordination of
one large group of schools — the weapon schools.

In most armies a separate school exists for instruction in each
weapon or branch of the service. Thus we find : Rifle, Machine
Gun, Cavalry, Field Gun, Gas and Sapper Schools, etc. This
is as it should be, as it enables the technique of each arm to be
acquired, but it is not sufficient, as technique is subordinate to
tactics, and the various parts of an army — infantry, cavalry,

250 The Reformation of War

artillery, etc., seldom fight as separated units. In order to co-
ordinate the instruction gained in the Weapon Schools, a Tactical
University is required, the duty of which is to set together the
elements of war in a coherent tactical scheme. Dealing with
men as well as with weapons, movement and protection, in it must
be taught the psychology of leadership as well as the mechanism
of tactics and the organization of contentment. To-day such a
school does not exist in any army, which fact only accentuates
its importance.

I have now dealt with the reformation of the brain and body
of the army, and, in the remaining pages of this Chapter, I intend,
very briefly, to consider the reformation of its soul, which, curious
as it may seem, is very closely related to money — the sinews of
administration.

Economically, management revolves between two poles —
centralization and decentralization. The one cannot exist
without the other, but, in non-competitive organizations, the
first is always apt to become obese. I have already, in Chapter
III., dealt with the organization of government departments, and
have shown that ministries are virtually monasteries in which
the law of the survival of the fittest ceasing to operate results in
the creation of a body of administrators who, having lost all
human touch, have become soulless shells of men.

The following are, I believe, the main causes of this spiritual
decrepitude :

(i.) Lack of an economic objective. The economic objective
of army administration is to transmute money into military
efficiency and not to spend money according to regulations
which may be totally inapplicable to existing circumstances.
This is common-sense ; nevertheless our present Treasury System
(last reformed in 1689) seldom enables this virtue to be exercised.

To the soldier, there can be no doubt that the duty of a
battalion commander is to obtain in his battalion the highest
possible standard of fighting efficiency. I will suppose that this
efficiency is represented by a, b, c, d, . . . n ; that " a " is musketry,
" b" bayonet fighting, " c" recreation and " d " physical health.

The Reformation of the Army 251

Suppose now that the central management has laid down that
£100 is allotted for training in musketry ; but, as it happens,
this battalion does not require it for musketry, being highly
efficient in this subject, and, the battalion being quartered in
the centre of a large town, its commander would like to expend
this money on the hire of a neighbouring field, which will enable
him to train his men in bayonet fighting, for which he has no
facilities, and, incidentally, will enable them to play football
every afternoon. Should permission be granted to him, not
only will his men become more efficient but more physically
fit and more contented, all very valuable assets. But, alas ! as
every soldier knows, it is very seldom granted, because, if a
battalion costs, I will suppose, -£200,000 a year, this sum is divided
up into " watertight " compartments ; so much for food, so much
for pay, so much for clothing, so much for musketry, etc., etc.
In fact the object of finance is not to obtain the maximum
efficiency at a minimum cost, but the maximum observation of
routine regulations out of a fixed sum of money. Such a pro-
cedure can bear no relationship to changing circumstances,
consequently it is contrary to common-sense, and not only destroys
the desire to attain efficiency but stimulates dishonesty if this
desire refuses to die.

Suppose now, for example, that a complete decentralization
be agreed to and that the whole of the £200,000 be handed over to
the battalion commander, and that a standard of efficiency be laid
down for all objects of expenditure, and that, directly any one
standard is attained, any surplus money be allocated to assist in
the attainment of the remainder, and that at the completion of
each year a comparative table be made out for all units in the
army showing :

(a) The standard of efficiency reached.

(b) The expenditure in attaining this efficiency.

(c) The balance of money left over after attaining it.

Then it will be possible to see at a glance which are the most
economical battalions and who are the most efficient commanders,
and according to their degree of efficiency should they be rewarded

252 The Reformation of War

by promotion or extra pay, and according to their degree of
failure either dismissed or their pay reduced.

By this system the unit commander would control his own
accounts, and the present accountants and auditors would
cease to be the dictators of his accounts.

I fully realize that so complete a decentralization cannot and
should not be attempted; nevertheless, steps should be taken
as far as it is possible, and certainly as regards training, to de-
centralize the present soul-destroying system. Some cases of
individual dishonesty may result (as they do to-day), but I doubt
whether any dishonesty could possibly be as expensive as the
safeguardings of the present Treasury restrictions, for corruption
is not safeguarded against by refusing to declare a dividend —
efficiency, but by a constant inspection of the executive (human
not paper) side of the business.

(ii.) Lack of application of economic principles. I do not here
propose to enter into an analysis of the principles of " supply and
demand," " profit and loss " and the law of " decreasing returns,"
but in place to lay down four economic principles which are not
observed by the financial management of the army. They are as
follows :

(a) The balancing of accounts is not in itself equivalent to
efficiency in training.*

(b) Training, to be economical, depends on the acceptance of
a policy which will influence with the least detriment commercial
prosperity.

(c) The cost of an army can only be considered economical
when the army attains a higher efficiency than the depreciation of
capital consequent on its attainment, f

(d) Unremunerative expenditure by decreasing the value of a
soldier as a citizen is as grave an injustice to the nation as in-

* Conversely, if efficiency in training does not result, however carefully
the accounts may have been balanced, the money spent will have been squandered.

■f I.e., as the civil capital value of a soldier may be taken at ^6,000 and his
yearly depreciation at £300, his military efficiency must be worth to the nation
more than ^300 a year.

The Reformation of the Army 253

adequate expenditure which reduces his capacity as a fighting
man.*

The non-observance of these principles by the army, on ac-
count of the existing Treasury restrictions, results in a yearly
wastage of many millions of pounds, let alone an incalculable loss
of efficiency.

(iii.) Lack of appreciation of economic conditions. In econo-
mics, as in war, conditions either assist or resist the economist,
who, consequently, must possess dynamic force, that is — power
to change. The struggle for existence applies to him as to
all other human activities ; it constitutes an impeccable sorting
machine, for without competition there can be no economic
growth. To vegetate is not to economize, and yet this is precisely
what most armies in the past have done ; they have, in fact, re-
mained static absorbers of money — bun-swallowing bears which,
when well caged by Treasury restrictions, are kept to amuse the
populace. There is as much difference between a growing army
and a subsisting army as there is between a growing tree and
a branch in a jug of water.

Sir John Keane writes : " The manager of a department in a
business is given a free hand and judged by results. If the results
are bad, he probably gets the sack ; if good, he is probably pro-
moted. But the essential point is that power for good or bad lies
with the individual."! In an over-centralized organization what
do we find ? We find that the permanent officials are tied down
to fixed rules and regulations, and that the executive personnel
adminstered by them are tied down by these officials, whose rules
and regulations, normally, bear not the faintest relationship to
existing requirements, their utility having years before grown
impotent.

In order to amend these " Chinese writings " the conditions
of military management must be placed on a level with those to be

* I have adapted the above principles from a paper on " Military Economics "
written by my friend Brigadier-General W. G. Ramsey Fairfax, D.S.O.

f " Government Extravagance and its Remedy," National Review,
July, 1920. Also see " The Zealots," by the same author.

254 The Reformation of War

found in any well-conducted business. The object must be laid
down as well as the requirements requisite to attain it, and then,
as Sir John Keane says :

"... the Treasury should fix the sum and the executive
officers should decide how it is to be spent. Those who know the
facts must be allowed a free hand. Those who do not know the
facts, like the Treasury, and try to control in detail, will be hum-
bugged every time. ... In business a proper system of cost
accounts enables an employee to be placed in a position of re-
sponsibility with sufficient working capital, and to be judged by
results."

Military efficiency, I maintain, can be evolved just as readily
as its counterpart in business, if an army is endowed with a soul,
and souls are born of responsibility — free will, and thrive through
judgment — free criticism. To be predestined to do something is
to be damned, and the damned go down to hell or to Aldershot.

I am not such a purblind pedant as to believe that the system
of reformation outlined in this chapter should forthwith be
adopted. Though a system, it is but an illustration of an idea,
and for this idea, this acorn of thought, to sprout into an oak and
grow will require years of careful thought, and before this thought
can develop prejudice in things old must cease.

To-day the British Army may be compared to the owner of a
stately Jacobean mansion who cannot afford to keep it in repair.
It has been in his family for 300 years, and he naturally is very
loath to part with it and inhabit some horrible ferro-concrete
house. He cannot afford to modernize it, and, to make both ends
meet, he shuts up room after room, and so " economizes " his
reduced income and hopes for better times. He cannot tear
himself away from its memories and traditions and family ghosts,
and so the dry-rot creeps through its foundations and the rain
percolates through its roof.

The passing of grandeur is always a sad sight, but what is a
sadder sight still is to watch those who once were grand imagining
that they can continue to be so in decrepitude. Houses are
made for men and not men for houses, so also are armies created

The Reformation of the Army 255

to protect nations and not nations to maintain obsolete armies.
Yet it is the nation which must pay for the building of the new
military house, and as long as this habitation is not built the nation
must not complain if its army continues to shelter itself in its
tumble-down old mansion. To camp in the open, these trouble-
some times, is sheer folly. To build means money. What the
army to-day requires, in order that military economies may be
effected, is a sum of money — I will suppose £50,000,000 as a loan,
and then a fixed allowance of, I will suppose, a similar sum for
the next ten years. Out of this allowance, or budget, it should
pay a yearly interest on the loan of five per cent, and pay back
£5,000,000 at the end of each financial year. To-day, this is im-
possible, as the Treasury System does not permit of it ; further,
possessing no combined general staff, a thinking organ, no archi-
tect exists who can plan the new residence. Instead, economy is
sought by each year strapping the army on to the financial operat-
ing table, and by removing bits of its arms, legs and internal
organs. The result is that the army is in a perpetual state of
convalescence ; one day its crippled remains may be allowed to
hobble along on two sticks, and this is called economizing ! If
economy it be, then surely must Bedlam be the Adytum of econo-
mics. Would it not be wiser to cry with King John : " Bedlam
have done ! "

XIII

THE PEACE WHICH PASSETH UNDERSTANDING

IN the last two Chapters I outlined the main features of an
organization which, I am of opinion, can produce the
scientific military thinker, without whom warfare must continue
to flounder through traditional darkness. As from the alchemist
of the Middle Ages arose the chemist of to-day, so do I believe
that, from the swashbuckler of the present period will arise the
war-scientist of the future, who, understanding war and its
purpose, will liberate the armies of civilized powers from the ob-
sessions of bloodshed and destruction.

I have shown that the grand strategist and his combined
general staff must, in order to secure policy, understand policy.
To understand policy there must be a policy, and in this Chapter
it is my intention to examine the machinery which produces
policy, a machine which has fallen into such disrepair that, unless
the theory of traditional politics is changed, there can be little
hope of any radical change in the theory of traditional warfare.
In order to remedy this political machine, it is necessary to under-
stand its nature, and, as it is essentially a human machine, I, in
this last Chapter, will turn back to the first, in which I examined
the forces which control all human actions.

In Chapter I., I pointed out that collectivism suppresses in-
dividualism and does not express it, and that, as suppression in-
creases, the more eagerly does the individual seek to express his
individuality in the free and untrammelled exercise of the hunting
spirit. I will now examine this statement from its political
aspect.

Man desires rest, physical and mental, but this ideal is denied

256

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 257

to him, for, in order to live, he has to struggle. Further, though
he desires restfulness, he fears the absolute state of rest typified in
death. He is in every way a discontented animal, and the degree
of his discontent, his incessant search after some unobtainable
solvent, is the measure of his physical and mental virility. His
instinct of self-preservation, fear of death, urges him to hunt for
food. In the woman, the instinct of racial-preservation urges her
to mate, that is, to form with man a co-operative association
which, as the family arises, establishes among human kind a
purely natural form of communism. A new spirit is thus evolved
and a much more tangible one, it is the spirit of the family, the
restful home after hunting, and the only practical solvent man is
likely to discover on earth. From the family springs creative
society, that is, a community of individuals who evolve through
self-sacrifice and mutual support. The simple hunting spirit has
now grown into a complex, a hunt after codes and laws, ideals,
morals, ethics and knowledge, which stabilize the community in
a state of internal restfulness. Yet, without discontent, that
haunting spirit of change, inherent in the law of survival, the
community cannot for long endure.

From the family, eventually, evolves the nation, the head and
councillors of which constitute its masculine and the people its
feminine elements. Imbued with the hunting spirit, the king or
chieftain aims, through his own activities, to produce a condition
of restfulness among his subjects. The stimulus is fear, fear
arising from his instinct of self-preservation, fear that, unless his
people are well supplied with material and mental food, they will
destroy him ; in other words, that they will hunt him off his throne.
On this fear he forms two managerial or stabilizing bureau-
cracies : an army to stand behind his will and, by enforcing it,
control the hunting spirit of the community ; and a church to
stand behind the ideal of restfulness and control the mind of man
by denying or promising it this ideal. Later, when customs
stabilize into rights, a judicial bureaucracy is formed to administer
these rights or laws, and, eventually, the modern state evolves
with its numerous ministries, offices and departments, all of which

17

258 The Reformation of War

should be feminine in nature ; that is, fertilized by the king and
his councillors, they should produce a state of national passivity
in which the dynamic force in life and its static inclination are
balanced by law and order.

As governments grow more and more complex, we find that
individual rule — kingship, is replaced by a collective sway —
proletarianism. Nations are then governed by small crowds of
politicians elected to represent their interests. These interests,
in a healthy society, are closely connected with the hunting spirit
in all its forms, the object of which is not only to preserve in-
dividuals and families but to render them contented, that is, to
supply them with rest (leisure) as well as labour. Thus, if we
examine English political history, we find that formerly Parlia-
mentary representation was largely based on agriculture ; each
agricultural district, normally, returning as its member its most
influential landlord, because, of all men in the district, he was
the best suited to express a common opinion in the interests of
the staple occupation, the form taken by the hunting spirit in his
area.

To-day we find that these political districts or constituencies
are very similar to those which existed a hundred and fifty years
ago, in spite of the fact that that portion of the dynamic force of
life which constitutes the hunting spirit no longer seeks its freedom
in ploughing, sowing and reaping, but in casting, tooling and
machining. In brief, the form which the hunting spirit to-day
takes is industrial and not agricultural production and acquisi-
tion. What does this mean ? It means that, in theory, repre-
sentation is no longer based on the interests of the constituencies,
but on the number of people within them who can be induced to
vote. It is theoretically a numerical representation based on
brute force and frequently the brute stupidity of numbers. It is,
consequently, closely related to the brute force theory of tradi-
tional warfare. Practically it is, however, a great deal more, for
the candidates have to struggle between themselves for election,
and are, consequently, driven to every subterfuge in order to
acquire power ; not for the purpose of fostering national pros-

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 259

perity but as a weapon to enable them to defeat their opposite
numbers.

The question now arises, where does this power reside ? Theo-
retically it resides in the people, but, as most of these have daily
to struggle for their existence, they have little time to accumulate
it in its modern form of money. Practically, we find, therefore,
that this power is to be sought for among those who, possessing
money, are to a greater extent freed from the above struggle.
From this we may assume that their hunting spirit has become
subservient to their inclination to rest, and, consequently, their
power is psychologically antipathetic to the interests of the
multitude upon whom virtually they are resting, and on whose
passivity the stability of this rest depends. We find, therefore,
that, to-day, instead of representing the interests of the nation,
our Members of Parliament represent the prejudices of small
sections of the nation. These sections are deeply imbued with
bureaucratic (traditional) tendencies, consequently their object
is to maintain the status quo upon which the existence of these
prejudices is based. This status quo is founded on a fear of
change, and here we arrive at that dangerous social condition
in which the irresistible force — the hunting spirit, is restricted
and tamped by the all but immovable substance — the inertia
of the governing classes.

We see, therefore, that to-day representation is ultimately
based on fear, fear of a free expression of the hunting spirit,
and that, consequently, Members of Parliament are the mere
needles and sound-box of the national gramophone, the records
of which are prepared by the various contending parties. All
of these are controlled by small self-seeking bureaucracies,
none of which are more bureaucratic than those obsessed by
socialistic and communistic doctrines. In fact, communism
is bureaucracy standing on its head, for communism expects
a community to live like one family : in theory a beautiful ideal,
but in practice an attempt to balance a pyramid upon its apex.

The growth of industry, due to the general use of steam-power
during the last century, carried with it a stupendous social

17*

260 The Reformation of War

revolution. Among civilized nations, manual labour was re-
placed rapidly by machine work, which, by increasing output,
increased wealth and to a high degree liberated the worker
from the serfdom of the soil, but only to sell him into bondage
in the workshop. In the manufactories he was completely
cut off from his natural activities ; the changing phases of nature
which once surrounded him in the fields being replaced by a
grim monotonous routine which enslaved him to the machines
the brain of man had designed. The result of this suppression
of his natural instincts by machine-power tamped down his
hunting spirit, until, towards the middle of the nineteenth
century, a series of social explosions occurred and have never
ceased their repercussion. When internal vents could not be
found, if we examine the history of this period, we shall find a
steady growth of warlike fervour in the nations which had
benefited most from industry. From the Crimea onwards,
Great Britain is engaged in a series of small wars ; France
builds up a great colonial empire, and Germany rapidly grows
intoxicated on the dream of world dominion. Though many
causes were at work, in my opinion, the leading cause of this
activity was the suppression of the hunting instinct in man due
to the tamping down of the social revolution created by the
general adoption of steam as a motive power.

The social and political recoil of this commercial and war-
like fervour, generically may be termed " pacifism." The
commercial pacifist dreaded social disturbance as it would affect
his personal wealth, and the political pacifist dreaded foreign
wars as they would upset the stability of his political prejudices.
From this fervour and its recoil developed two great political
schools of thought — the war-lovers and the peace-lovers, which
in all civilized countries, during the last fifty years, have formed
the centrifugal and centripetal forces in politics. One quantity
they held in common, namely, their power was based on wealth.

Out of the friction engendered by these two opposite schools,
emerged a new political group — the under-dog, the eventual
Socialist party. Outwardly its policy is pacific ; but why,

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 261

since without struggling it cannot survive ? Because, by
proclaiming foreign wars evil, it aspires not only to weaken
military power and so undermine the stability of domestic
peace, but also simultaneously to dam up within the country
itself the hunting spirit of the people, which, finding no escape
for its activities in foreign wars, will explode into wars of purga-
tion and destroy all traditional government. In other words,
the aim of the socialist is to do away with ordered force so that
he may employ disorder as a force for his own immediate benefit.
In character, socialism is atavistic, for it does not so much
attempt to reform as to deform, it does not attempt to progress
to a condition in advance of the existing one, but to retrogress
to a condition so far behind it that it appears totally different
from it in character. Socialism is not creative ; it is imitative, it
is a social throw-back. To the socialist the past is far distant,
consequently simple and beautiful, for its jagged edges cannot be
seen and its form glows pink through the rays of the setting sun
of history. Yet, in spite of this predilection for the mythology
of Eden, socialism being primitive is intensely human ; con-
sequently, within its barbarous body palpitates a sentient
heart. Though impelled to use brute force in order to reinstate
the baboon, the socialist dreams of an eventual Paradise, wherein
there is neither labour nor competition, and where love, meat and
drink are free and the sky is ever blue, and the benches soft to lie
upon — a veritable Fragonard picture dreamt of in a glue factory.
As the separation of the two great political parties, the
Progressives and the Statists, from the instincts and interests
of the people widens, the Socialist, or retrogressive party,
grows in strength, and, being the recoil, or enemy of both parties,
it compels both to turn from national policy to party salva-
tion. In place of attempting to secure the nation against
foreign attack — ethical, economic, or military, both parties
attempt to maintain civil tranquillity, not in order to secure
prosperity but to secure their own existence, which is based on
the common foundation of wealth. To illustrate this I will
turn to history.

262 The Reformation of War

From the year 1588 to 1815, English foreign policy, with few
exceptions, was based on the principle of the balance of power,
which formed the expression of political brute force against all
would-be disturbers of the world's peace. From 1821 to 1864
the introduction and growth of railways takes place. Coinci-
dental with the industrial development which followed is the
falling off in the vigour of this policy, until, in 1864, the British
Government, headed by Mr. Gladstone, tore up their treaty
agreements with Denmark and so permitted Prussia to violate
the balance of power in Europe.

The tigress having tasted blood and finding the inhabitants
of neighbouring lands succulent meat, two years later rends
Austria, and four years later France falls a victim to her lust.
Meanwhile England stands still and does nothing. This results
in the German Empire becoming the supreme military power
in Europe ; in fact Germany henceforth is dictator of continental
wars. What has really happened ? The German hunting spirit
has found a vent, and rushing outwards, seeks to secure internal
peace by the search after unattackable frontiers. As within
the country domestic tranquillity stabilizes, prosperity increases
and commerce demands economic frontiers. To be secure,
they must be made unattackable, consequently Germany dreams
of the command of the seas. She must create a supreme navy
to add it to her supreme army. The child begotten of these
two monsters, as has always been the case in the past, is world
dominion ; and for Germany the only obstacle on her road
to brigandage is British supremacy at sea.

I cannot here enter into the development of world politics
between the years 1871 and 1914, for this is outside the scope
of this book. All I intend doing it to summarize the means
open to Germany in order to realize her dream. To reduce
Great Britain to the position of a second-rate power, three
lines of attack could be followed :

(i.) Economic expansion which, by degrees, would destroy
the British markets.

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 263

(ii.) Direct naval attack which, if successful, would place
Great Britain at her mercy.

(hi.) Military action on the continent which would enable
her to absorb Holland, Belgium, North-Eastern France
and the French Colonies, and gain economic control of
Austria, the Balkans and the Turkish Empire.

The first was unlikely to prove successful unless guaranteed
by supremacy at sea, besides Russia was a rapidly growing
menace. The second was most difficult, for, though a great
navy could be created, the geographical position of the German
naval bases was unpropitious to decisive naval action on tradi-
tional lines. Had Germany, in 1900, appreciated the powers
of the submarine, she might very easily have won the war at
sea in 19 14. The third was not only the traditional method
employed by Germany since 1864 and, consequently, the upmost
thought in the German mind, but it offered the greatest possibili-
ties. If France could be annihilated in six or eight weeks then
the war would be won, and any obstruction on the part of the
British fleet arising later on would at most but present a minor
problem, and, as we know to-day, would have been solved by
the underwater attack on our overseas trade. The war won,
twenty years of Germanic internal prosperity would have
followed, which would either have enabled Germany to annihi-
late the British Empire by economic pressure or to have attacked
it successfully by naval action. With the destruction of the
British Empire, for its period, the German dream of world
dominion would have been realized.

From the opening of the present century until the year
1914, only pretexts of war are to be discovered, for the causes
had long since taken root. The nature of the war which
followed is not to be sought in these causes but in their effects,
and above all in the peace terms which followed the cessation
of hostilities. In brief, what were these terms ? Not the
establishment of a higher prosperity than that which existed
before the war, but the destruction of Germany as a civilized

264 The Reformation of War

power, because Germany had outlawed herself in the eyes of
mankind by attempting to gain dominion over the world. In
place of reinstating her in a position which economically would
have benefited the world, a course which would undoubtedly
have been followed had the war originated solely from an economic
cause, the signatories of the treaty of Versailles attempted to
assassinate her, for had she not sought to steal the very souls
of the nations of the world in order to dominate them by her
" Kultur " and to enslave them to her will? For such a crime
there can be but one fitting punishment — death. Unfortunately
for the signatories, however just may have been their indigna-
tion, nations of sixty-five million souls cannot be exterminated ;
further, it is foolish to attempt such an action even on paper,
since it is not their bodies which have offended but their spirits.
The signatories were, however, acting on well-defined traditional
lines. Their own power was based on wealth, consequently
they attempted to murder the German nation by cutting off
its economic means of existence. By so doing, they inflicted a
wound on the body of the world which if unstaunched will
bleed this body white.

Whatever may have been the conditions in which the belli-
gerents were labouring during the war, one fact is certain, namely,
that on November n, 1918, they had saved their souls, conse-
quently any succeeding attempt to impair the body of the world
was an act of madness, for the world-soul has to inhabit this body.
The mistake made was the Armistice itself, for a soul is attacked
by a soul, and though the German body had been defeated her
soul remained intact, because war was never carried into her
country and her spirit purified by terror and the visible signs of
complete defeat, namely, military occupation. From this mistake
will originate most of the evils of the present age. I will now
turn to another aspect of this subject.

The final victory of the Allies, in November, 1918, was so
stupendous an event that it is apt to obscure the main issue of
over four years of war, which was not the physical defeat of
Germany, but the destruction of the world outlook — social,

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 265

political and military, as it was accepted by all civilized nations
before the outbreak of the war. So all-embracing was this
cataclysm that, during the years immediately following the cessa-
tion of hostilities, no other condition could have been possible
save that of a world-wide revolution, the intensity of which can
better be gauged from the changes which have taken place in
ideas than from the quantity of blood spilt. These changes are
still gaining impetus, and, in the vortex which is sucking down
old institutions and belching up new ones, the political forces
must take their place.

The Great War of 1914-18 was not waged to end war but to
maintain the liberties of nations, so that they might continue to
struggle one with another and in the process refine their respective
natures. A war to end war is an absurdity, just as a peace to end
peace is an absurdity ; both are the cries of maniacs which end
nothing except common-sense. What, however, the Great War
did end was the reality of 19 14 ; it dematerialized this condition,
which, to-day, stalks the world a giant phantom palsying our
minds.

The Devil took Christ into a high mountain and showed to
him all the kingdoms of the world, saying : " All this power will I
give you if you will fall down and worship me " ; and Christ said :
" Get thee behind me, Satan." To-day the Devil of 1914 takes
us up the blasted pinnacle of hope left standing by the war, and
shows to us the world as it was before the war destroyed it, and
he says : " All this splendour and contentedness and wealth will
I return to you if you will but fall down and worship me." To
this the politician answers : " Thank you very much," and then
goes on hammering at Germany and Russia, one a sick and the
other a demented nation ; the outrage is brutal, and the Devil of
1914 rubs his hands and smiles.

Yet there is still a Christ in this world — the spirit of humanity,
which is audibly whispering : " Get thee behind me, Satan ... we
will have none of these past wonders, because they are but phan-
toms of things dead, they are soulless and void of salvation."

The world of 1914 has been purified by fire ; to-day this world

266 The Reformation of War

is a better world|than it ever was before, for it has vanquished the
greatest of all evils — the spiritual enchainment of liberty. Cer-
tainly it is a poorer world, yet " Blessed be ye poor," for poverty
means struggle, and struggle means self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice
means progress ; the stepping forward on our dead-selves to
better things, and progress, that is rational thought, is the road to
Paradise.

The outstanding result of the Great War was a moral revolu-
tion. The new spirit, blind as it yet is, like a second Samson has
seized the pillars of the temple of traditions, and prejudices and
interests have been scattered to the ground. Those who are
engulfed in this cataclysm see nothing but evil, but those who
stand apart from it see nothing but good.

Much debris has fallen in Russia and many have been en-
tombed, because, of all civilized nations, Russia was the most
traditionally unprogressive and ignorant, and the ignorant
always suffer most. In Russia the revolution destroyed 1914^0
that it might create a better nation ; in England the revolution set
out to reform 1914, and the progress already made is so stupendous
that, to most people, it is invisible, yet the Russian revolution has
been but a miasmal zephyr compared to the invigorating hurri-
cane which has swept the British Empire from end to end.

Say you, that discontent stalks broadly through the daylight ?
Then, answer I yet again, discontent is the quintessence of mental
youth, it is the surest sign of health since it is the visible sign of
activity. Anarchy more often than not is terrible, yet there is
something worse — communism, or the slow asphyxiation of the
human soul by a creeping, drivelling idiocy. Anarchy is, after
all, nothing but brutal healthfulness ; we do not want anarchy, but
of all things precious is the force which creates it, and it is this
force, to-day dancing drunkenly, which we must divert towards
the reconstruction of the world.

I cannot forbear quoting one small example of this liberty
abroad. We are told by the moralists of 1914 that England is a
land of corruption and that virtue has passed along her way.
We are told that never were the divorce courts so full and that,

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 267

consequently, never have morals been so low. What sophistry !
I cannot vouch for the numbers of the unhappily married, but I
can vouch for this, that unhappiness is not a virtue, that happiness
is, and that those who cannot find happiness in wedlock show not
only common-sense but virtue in seeking divorce, for marriage
was instituted for man and not man for marriage. So also with
each of the great changes, the seeking of liberation from 1914
ideals is, by the traditional school of thought, classed as a vice,
simply because liberty will not and cannot stand still ; for if it
were able to do so it would cease to be liberty, and instead would
be slavery, nothing more and nothing less.

Socialism, which has been one of the great forces since 1848,
has also divorced many of its pre-war preposterous traditions ;
it too has been refined by war ; the lanky good has filled out
and has become much more human in form, while the retrograde
bad has become still more deformed, if only by comparison. It is
becoming idiotic, and idiotic through dotage, which is a good sign,
as this shows that it is nearing its end.

Except in Russia, socialism has, to a very considerable extent,
lost its pre-war shortsightedness. Then there was much talk of
maximum and minimum incomes, but since, during the war, so
many socialists remained at home and amassed fortunes, this
topic of conversation has been quietly dropped. The present
trouble is that the bad in the old socialism is still in a state of de-
composition ; consequently, it stinks, but this should not frighten
us, for again it is a good sign, for a decomposing body is one which,
if given fresh air above ground, will rapidly fall to dust.

One of the great backwashes of the Great War was the rapid
spread of communistic theories and action. Brotherly love was
the natural recoil of the horrors of traditional slaughter. For
over four years men had been cutting each other's throats ; conse-
quently, once this madness was over, the pendulum of life swung
in the opposite direction, and universal kissing, a most disgusting
operation, was proclaimed the goal of all progress.

Out of Russian military chaos and bureaucratic corruption
stealthily crept revolution, which, in March, 1917, gathered speed

268 The Reformation of War

as the railways broke down. It opened almost like a school rag.
On March 16, one soldier said to General Knox :* " We have
suffered 300 years of slavery, you cannot grudge us a single week
of holiday." Then discipline gave way. In June, Kerenski calls
upon the army, " fortified by the strength and spirit of the Revolu-
tion, to take the offensive." The men in some units say : " We
will attack, but if we fail, we will kill the Corps Staff," while others
pin up on their barrack doors : " Handshaking is abolished in hot
weather." Lenin issues an order to his own party which ends :
" I demand, I beg, I hope that this order will be carried out," and
General Knox adds : " Damned ass ! "

All sense of humour having been lost, madness supervenes,
physical and material disorder create mental and moral disorder
— all go mad.

" The thieves of Moscow had a meeting outside the town, and
the Chief of Police showed his human sympathy by attending. It is
said that a unanimous resolution was passed to refrain from stealing
for two days ' in honour of the sun of freedom ! '

" Similarly the deserters met in a conference at Odessa, and the
Commander-in-Chief was received with acclamation !

" In Petrograd, children have been seen parading with banners
inscribed : ' Down with parental yoke ! ' "

Lastly, out of madness howls the beast ; a wolfish spirit of lust
and cruelty sweeps over the maniacs.

At Kalusz " eye-witnesses related that forty to fifty men in
turn outraged old women of seventy. . . . The retiring Germans
bombarded the town, but the noise of the bombardment was
literally drowned by the cries of women. . . . Soldiers stripped
little girls naked . . . and one after another, there on the street,
violated the children and then cut them to pieces."

Thus do we see emerge, from the green leaves of the " little
holiday," the red slug of Bolshevism, which has slimed Russia
with a bestiality which puts to blush the shame of Sodom and
Gomorrah ; once the cities of the plain, but, in 1917, rearisen
more monstrous still as Moscow and Petrograd.

* The British Military Attache at Petrograd. The following quotations
are taken from his book, " With the Russian Army, 1914-1917."

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 269

We rub our eyes and can but mutter with Isaiah : " We grope
for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes ; we
stumble at noonday as in the night ; we are in desolate places as
dead men." Yet this orgy of blood was but the curtain-raiser to
a still more demented scene, for the madness of anarchy was
about to be replaced by the idiocy of communism, which, in 1918
and 1919, swept over the world like a leprous plague.

First, I will examine economic communism — the theory held
by Lenin ; and secondly, ethical communism — the theory held
by President Wilson.

The economic communist says : Huge money capitals are an
evil and are a result of competition. If every man possesses a
million pounds the world is no better off than if every man pos-
sessed one penny. Lenin then says : But why should he possess
a penny ; if you agree to a penny, why not to twopence, a shilling
and eventually back to the million ? I shall, therefore, destroy
all capital, so that, as no one will be allowed to possess capital, all
forced competition will disappear.

The ethical communist says : Huge mental capitals are an evil
and are the result of competing minds. If every man possesses
high ability the world is no better off than if every man possessed
a low ability. What does President Wilson say ? He says,
somewhat vaguely, that every nation has a right of self-determina-
tion, or, in other words, that a highly cultured nation is of no
greater value to humanity than one without any culture at all,
ergo, culture, or mental and moral capital, should be abolished.

Darwin, some sixty years ago, did his utmost to prove that
because of competition (the struggle for existence) from the apt
evolved the man. If he is right, then lack of competition will
mean that from man will devolve the ape. Is he right ? I, for
one, do not know, but I know this : that in this world there is no
equality ; in place there is incessant variety ; consequently, to talk
of no one nation being allowed (which presupposes some om-
nipotent power) to do this or that is as absurd as the search after
the philosopher's stone. Lenin has searched for it, and the result
has been called " a bloody baboonery." President Wilson has

270 The Reformation of War

searched for it, and the results up to date are none too en-
couraging.

The fourteen points and the League of Nations ruined the
peace treaty, because they were based on sublime nonsense and
not on common-sense, which includes human nature. The
terms of the Armistice based on the fourteen points proclaimed
the Brotherhood of Man, and were proffered to the Germans
when friend and foe, the eternal brothers, were still gazing
at each other through a haze of blood which proved the unreality
of this amiable dream. The Germans, ever foolish in diplomacy,
swallowed the fourteen points hook and all. The Allies thereupon
repudiated the fourteen points and drove the gaff of the Treaty
of Versailles through the German skin. " The German com-
mentators," says Mr. Keynes, " had little difficulty in showing
that the draft Treaty constituted a breach of engagements and
of international morality comparable with their own offences
in the invasion of Belgium."* Very true, but just as, in 1914,
the Germans tore up their treaty because self-preservation de-
manded that their armies must advance through Belgium,
so, in 1 91 9, the Allies tore up their Armistice Terms because
instinctively they felt that Germany had not as yet felt the
spiritual smart of defeat and must do so. The blunder was the
Armistice, the black day in European history. The fourteen
points were all kisses ; life is not made up of kisses alone, and if
it were the world would be a very dull place to live in. This
every cinema play reveals, for the hero who kisses has always
got a gun in his pocket for the other kisser, the villain. The
terms of the Armistice were not true to human nature, the cinema
generally is. If you are out to kiss make sure you have a revolver,
for kisses and revolvers are near related to the eternal forces in life
— love and fear. President Wilson was all love, the Allies were
all fear, and until these two wed, Europe will continue in a turmoil.

Under the influence of the fear of Germany in the future,
the Allies attempted to reconstruct Europe on such lines that
Germany would for years to come be rendered impotent. To

* "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," J. M. Keynes, C.B., p. 59.

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 271

accomplish this they employed the tool of self-determination,
not because they believed in kisses, but because, for their purpose,
they found it possessed a very sharp edge.

I cannot here enter into the ramifications of this reconstruction,
which mediae valized a great part of Europe, splitting up nations
according to weight of ignorant numbers irrespective of their
culture and fitness for independence and sovereignty. Instead,
I intend examining four great national influences — British,
French, German and Slavonic, and show that from them, in all
probability, will be engendered the next great European war.

In order to understand future international war tendencies,
the question of security of frontiers must never be lost sight of.
Frontiers in nature are not only military but also economic
and sometimes ethical. In 1914, Germany's military might
was based on her economic security, consequently, if Germany
could, by military force, extend her economic frontiers to the sea
coasts of other nations it would have endowed her with a world
supremacy, for then, at will, she could either have attacked
other nations militarily or forced them to economic surrender.

The British Empire stood in the way, and at the end of the war,
though our Imperial resources had been bled white, the economic
frontiers of the Empire remained intact. The French frontiers,
which, in nature, were military, were, in 1914, overrun for the
fourth time in a hundred years ; consequently, once the Armistice
was concluded, the first and all-important problem which con-
fronted France was her future frontier security. Physically,
Germany could not be erased from the map of Europe, but
economically she could be ruined, and the instrument to accom-
plish her destruction was President Wilson's principle of self-
determination, and, as the majority of effaced nations were of
Slav blood, the economic ruin of Germany could only be accom-
plished by the resurrection and creation of moribund and effete
Slavonic States, such as the Baltic States, Poland, Czecho-
slovakia and Jugo-Slavia.

This breaking up of German economic prosperity, as well as
the general Balkanization of large tracts of Europe, was a direct

272 The Reformation of War

blow against British trade. Depending on her overseas commerce
and not being self-supporting, British policy demands a prosperous
and progressive Europe which carries with it military strength.
France, being a self-supporting country, demands military weak-
ness on the part of the rest of Europe, and, consequently, economic
poverty, which can best be guaranteed by social disorder. Hence
the present wrangle between Great Britain and France.

The nature of this problem is, however, a more complex
one than at first meets the eye. The Slavonic races are of a low
culture and possess an oriental temperament. In Russia they
have proved themselves quite unfit to govern. Their main
power, however, is to be looked for in the probable enormous
increase in their population during the next two generations.
What does this mean ? It means either internal disorder or
foreign invasion in order to guarantee domestic tranquillity.
Out of this guarantee will once again evolve that search after
an unattackable frontier, which carries with it the idea of world
dominion. For the time being Germany may attempt to exploit
Russia, but sooner or later the hunting spirit in Russia will seek
a vent, and the lines of least resistance run westwards to the Baltic,
the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. For self-
preservation the nations of Europe will coalesce against the
Slav, and the most probable alliance, in order to maintain the
balance of power, is that of Germany, France and Great Britain.
Should war break out, Germany will receive the first shock, and
if she militarily is weak France and Great Britain will have to
bear the brunt of the contest. We see, therefore, that a weak
Germany is but an ephemeral advantage to France, as well as
being a cause of friction between France and England. The
date of this next great war, in my opinion, will depend on the
revival of Russia, and it is almost certain to be preceded by wars
between the new " Balkan " states created by the Treaty of
Versailles.

Since the ratification of this treaty, Europe has been faced by
two problems — how to enforce its terms and how to wriggle out
of enforcing them. The first problem is the French problem

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 273

and the second the British. While these problems were being
wrangled over, the United States of America, scared by a phantom
war with Japan and engaged on an enormous naval expansion
of an obsolescent type of warship, called together a disarmament
conference at Washington, the aim of which appears to have been,
not to guarantee peace but to manoeuvre into a good position for
the next war. If the British Alliance with Japan could be
severed, Japanese naval strength could be weakened ; if European
naval power could be reduced, American economic prosperity
could be better guaranteed.

England, with an exceptional lack of foresight, fell into the
economic trap. She severed her alliance with Japan, which,
in the future, might well prove a decisive requirement in a war
against Russia, and, smarting from her recent trade losses, sang
chorus to the United States' incantation against the submarine.
France played her part with marked astuteness ; what apparently
she wanted was supremacy of the air, for, though her aircraft
are, at any time in the near future, unlikely to be able to attack
America, with a supremely powerful air force she can enforce
her policy on two thirds of Europe. She made a great fuss
over the capital ship, with her tongue well in her cheek ; she made
a greater fuss over the submarine, so great that the aeroplane
remained undiscussed. The United States won the rubber,
but France won on points and Great Britain was handed the baby.

Once again at Genoa, in the spring of 1922, the wrangle is
reopened. The United States, having gained their point at Wash-
ington, very wisely take no part in the hubbub. The wrangle
is purely an economic one. The problem is how to make plus
and minus agree, plus being the British policy and minus the
French. But they cannot possibly agree ; then one of the two will
have to be abandoned, and the point now arises which ?

If a pugilist has an argument with a wealthy shopkeeper,
should the point under dispute lead to blows, which of the two
will win ? The answer is self-evident — the prize-fighter. To-day
England possesses a smaller army than she did in 1914, a one-
power navy, and an air force of thirty-five squadrons. France

18

274 The Reformation of War

possesses a stronger army than she did before the war, a strong
navy, and she is aiming at an air force of 220 squadrons. In
the British Army there are four battalions of tanks and in the
French between thirty and forty. I will now leave it to the
reader to decide who is the shopkeeper and who the pugilist ?

I do not for a moment accuse France of any wish to go to
war with England, for the French are at heart a peace-loving
nation and the French love peace so ardently that they have
every intention of safeguarding themselves against war. But
I cannot obscure from my mind the fact that as a pugilist can
always threaten, that is morally attack, a shopkeeper, British
diplomacy must suffer unless it is backed by military force.

Now that I have shown that the idea of a war to end war
is pure bunkum, and that Europe to-day is seething with warlike
problems, I intend to return to the question of political reform,
for without this we, as a nation, shall never succeed in getting
a policy, and, unless we have a policy, our fighting forces, upon
which ultimately the security of our prosperity depends, will be
comparable to a watch without a mainspring.

If the deductions I have now made in this Chapter are in any
way correct, then it would appear that the last war, in place
of being a war which will end war, will, like most other wars
which have preceded it, merely have reaped one crop of conten-
tions and simultaneously sown another. The peace which
followed it has left Europe split up into truculent factions with
a strong Slavonic bent, for as a few hundred years ago the Turks
were outside the gates of Vienna so are the Slavs there to-day.
That the League of Nations can maintain any semblance of peace
between these resuscitated nations is improbable, seeing that this
league possesses no political power. Some other solution must
be sought, and one which is not solely concerned with preventing
the decadence of peace. This solution, I believe, will be discovered
in a new political outlook which will aim at the creation of
spiritually healthy nations in open and equitable competition,
nations which understand the meaning of peace and the power
of war to enforce this meaning.

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 275

I have already shown that the present position of political
election has outgrown its original utility and is fast becoming
moribund. Further back, I described how the primitive State
possessed a threefold nature in order to secure the activities
and instincts of its people. To enable the people to thrive
economically, the soldier protected them and enforced order,
the judicature formulated laws in accordance with the will of
the most able, and the Church combined all classes in a spiritual
whole by endowing all with a common origin and a common end ;
Adam was the primal father and heaven or hell the final goal of
both rich and poor.

To-day this triple state does not exist, for government has
been swallowed up by economics ; it has in fact infringed the rights
of the individual and suppressed the hunting spirit, hence many
troubles. Religion has lost its sting, and with the weakening
of the fears of hell the blessings of heaven have become counter-
feit celestial coin. Once human life was looked upon as an analogy ;
to-day it is, for the masses, but a cog in a tyrannical machine.
What we must reinstate is free work guaranteed by common
rights, impelled forward by the liberty of labour and secured by
military force. For a moment, I will consider the nature of
life, which to-day is obscured under a mass of absurd idealism.

Life is a dynamic force, it is the swinging pendulum. It can-
not be regulated by a fixed idea or system. No definite social
architecture can be designed to meet its needs, for it is ever
growing and changing its shape. Spiritually, man's sense of
dignity has evolved out of his instinct of self-distinction, that
instinct which impels him to excel others so that he may morally
as well as physically secure himself against their competition.

From this instinct is developed pride of work, which dis-
tinguished the guilds of the Middle Ages, but which to-day
has been extinguished by quantity production. In this age
of steam-craft the worker has become slave to the engine,
at most he has become but a part of the machine ; con-
sequently, his whole outlook is mechanical ; not only does he
see himself as a cog but the whole world as a complex series of

18*

276 The Reformation of War

cogs slowly grinding each other to pieces. With a loss in the
love of work, he has lost his freedom.

When religion was a living, all-penetrating force, the worker
beheld himself as a living part of a great dynamic scheme in
which all toil was rounded off by a peace beyond understanding ;
to-day he appears to himself but a fragment of animated matter.
Then he looks upon those who rule him, and he finds that their
lives do not coincide with his life, there is a difference. He does
not understand that this difference is due to leisure (love),
which enables those who enjoy it to free themselves from the
mechanism of toil by exercising liberty in the choice of pleasures.
In place, he merely sees the difference, which, obsessed as he is
by the machine his master, appears to him to be mechanical
in character. Some cogs are better lubricated than others ;
here, then, is the source of the difference ; there are two classes
of cogs — the rich and the poor ; destroy this distinction and the
difference will be made good. How can it be destroyed ? By
abolishing the privileges of property, hence the tragedy of Russia.

This absurd mechanical outlook on life is the result of the
quantity theory which is the basis of the modern capitalist
system. The capitalist is also the materialist, and Quantity is
his god. As in military organization, quantity or numbers,
as I have shown, forms the pivot of the traditional theory of
war, so in economics and finance does quantity form the pivot
of the present traditional theory of prosperity. To the capi-
talist labour is but a commodity ; once man himself in the form
of a slave was looked upon as a chattel, a thing to be bought
and sold ; now it is his ability to work which is bartered. But
man is not a commodity, neither is his ability to work a com-
modity ; it is a living force which cannot be measured with
pint pot or by foot rule. Man has a right to his activities ;
at least he has a right to protect them, also has he a right to
his leisure. The worker feels this, but he cannot express it as
long as he is obsessed by the machine. Therefore, if a solution
is to be sought, he must be brought to master the machine so
that he may regulate his leisure and regain his lost freedom.

The Peace which Passeth Understanding 277

True leisure is but the free enjoyment of the hunting spirit ;
it is, therefore, a vent for those forces which, if suppressed, seek
exercise in discontent and war. Leisure is, consequently, the
foundation of domestic peace. To obtain leisure, the worker
must become an active force in place of a passive working tool.
In his work he must be brought to find a similar interest he
normally finds in his home. Interest is the analogy of success
and failure, a series of expectant spasms of joy and sorrow.
To gain this interest the worker must control his work so that
the exercise of his ability may replace the mere exercise of his
muscles. Then will his prosperity depend not so much on his
work as on his skill — skill is but another name for self-distinc-
tion— and through this instinct will he regain his soul and learn
that the problems of life are neither problems of quantity or
numbers, but are dynamic problems common to all. Also will he
find that they can only be attained by an integration of those
living forces which together create freedom for the common good.

It is difficult to explain in a few words the full meaning
of this spirituality, which has nothing to do with prayers and
hymn singing, but everything with the free exercise of the
hunting spirit in man. Sufficient, I hope, has been written
to enable the reader to realize that, if society is to be freed
from its present traditions, the existing political systems of all
civilized nations will have to undergo a drastic change.

Before the steam epoch, government was mainly concerned
in correlating man and the external world. To-day the political
outlook is pseudo-economic, the interests of the nation having
been replaced by the prejudices of the ruling party. Socializa-
tion is not only no cure but an actual accentuation of disease,
as it must lead to a purely mechanical political outlook.
Nationalization is the worst of all forms of government, because
economics express the hunting spirit and are, consequently,
the domain of the individual. The rights which underlie them,
the canalization of the human instincts and the economical
utilization of their recoil, as well as the general security of the
nation, these and these only are the true purposes of politics.

278 The Reformation of War

How this system of politics should be organized is too exten-
sive a subject to discuss here. All I can say is that the model
to follow is the body of man. Man's object is to live ; in other
words, his object is economic and ethical in nature. The
hidden forces which impel man to maintain it are his instincts,
to protect it his cunning and strength, and when man meets
man in peaceful competition from their common purposes are
rights evolved. So also with the body social. In peace its
forces must be canalized so that they may produce content-
ment, and organized so that they may be secured against
extinction.

Until the present political quantity idea is replaced by an
idea which expresses a true relativity between the human
energies, it will be most difficult to evolve from the traditional
theory of warfare the theory which in this book I have called
the moral attack. We dare not stand still. It is sheer folly to
sit down monk-like and copy out, however carefully, past systems,
for if the world is ever to be delivered from the horrors of war
then the road which must be followed is the track which leads
towards the angel and not towards the ape. I believe that wars
are inevitable, but I also believe that to copy the last war is
criminal, and that salvation from destruction is to be found
in searching ; then, quite possibly, a day will dawn when wars
will be decided upon a chess-board. Finally I would ask the
reader to ponder these last words. The goal of humanity is
far distant ; in a thousand years this present age of ours will
be looked upon as a barbarous epoch, our politics will be con-
sidered fantastic, our military art brutal and our social troubles
rather petty if not comic affairs. The road towards this goal
runs along an upward rise. The way is dark and infested with
phantoms : the devils of the past, the angels of the future.
Directly angels are compelled to our will they shrivel into
demoniacal forms and beckon us to halt and in our hearts
whisper strange and enticing words. Heed them not, for
righteousness is attainable only by the strong, the fearless and
the virile — there is no short cut to Paradise.

EPILOGUE

PEACE

It may be thought, after reading this book, or even after having
merely glanced through it, that I, its writer, intoxicated on strong
ale, have wished to cry with Pistol : " Why, then the world's
mine oyster, which I with sword will open ; " and the reader,
if in disposition he be contrary to war, may perhaps answer
with Falstaff : " Reason, you rogue, reason : thinkest thou,
I'll endanger my soul gratis ? At a word hang no more about
me ; I am no gibbet for you." Consequently, I must now rest
my pen, but, before doing so, will, in this epilogue, once again
inform the reader that my object has been not to hasten the
advent of the next great war but to examine its nature. To
show that without understanding the causes of war we can never
hope for stability of peace ; to show that, as long as peaceful-
ness is not healthy and clean, war, in one form or another, is
a very necessary cleanser and social tonic, and ultimately that
peace and war are, in fact, the halves of one diameter, the
circumference of which is the circle of existence.

We may or may not love war, or even a remembrance of
war or a suggestion of its recurrence, and, whether we human
beings be of divine origin or but a squared stone in the evolu-
tionary temple of the Great Architect, all our instincts so far
go to prove that we are animals ; some of us gentle, others
ferocious, and that those of carnivorous taste live on those
who browse the tender herbs of life. We are slaves of a hunting
spirit, which we may quell but cannot slay.

Not understanding this, and not understanding what peace
and war really mean, we are subject to innumerable phantasies,

279

280 The Reformation of War

hallucinations which lead us astray, and never more so than
after some great awakening, when the nerves are yet on edge,
as they are to-day, since the world is still suffering from " shell
shock." It yearns for peace, but it is too irritable to understand
that peace requires quietude.

The great danger is that this irritability may consolidate
into a chronic social disease — crowd rule ; a rule without ob-
jective, or perhaps with a mixture of incompatible objectives,
such as — liberty, equality and fraternity, all blurred into a
hideous contradiction. Nationality has become self-determina-
tion. To determine what ? Has the crowd ever determined
anything save chaos and anarchy ? Determine their material
existence, say you ? But surely determination cannot be
guaranteed merely by stuffing slips of paper into a ballot-box,
for it requires strength and right to enforce and maintain its
limits. The desire of the populace, be it well remembered, is
similar to the love of Proteus : " Which, like a waxen image 'gainst
a fire, bears no impression of the thing it was." The slightest
friction melts and disfigures it, it is amorphous and unstable.

Peace built on mob rule and desire is but a cloud castle
which is brought low in showers of blood on the first rumble of
war. The crowd, the oldest of gatherings, is still incomprehensible
to itself, it cannot learn. The first crowd was Adam and Eve,
and the fall was not the result of some stupendous crime, some
fearful cataclysm, but of a thing good to eat — an apple. Nearly
every social fall since has found its origin in a similar quest — the
obtaining of food. The next two members of human society
were — a rather weak-charactered agriculturist and a blood-thirsty
huntsman, the eternal opposites ; and the squabble was once
again over food — the allegory is, therefore, correct to life.

Like Abel, the normal citizen rightly desires peace, and
though for the sake of personal distinction, the soldier, during
peace time, proclaims his love for war, most soldiers when it
comes to :

" The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turned back within its socket . . ."

Epilogue 281

have learnt to sympathize with the boy in King Henry V. who
exclaimed : " Would I were in an ale-house in London I I
would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety." So also
does the soldier love peace, and never more so than when the
wrack and ruin of war surround him, for peace is his normal
state of healthy and unhealthy life, and, being normal, neither
he nor his black-coated brother understands the curative proper-
ties of war. Instead they seek balsams from mad chemists
who, while searching for strange herbs, in their progress scatter
the thistledown of war in their fields, and returning, wonder
why the seeds of war have destroyed their money-making
crops.

HONOUR

There is only one balsam which can make peace worth living
— honour, which is righteousness. There are sublimer ideals
than mere peacefulness, and honour is one of these. Peace with-
out honour is degradation, and as a noble woman safeguards
her honour, and will even sacrifice her life to maintain it in order
to keep the family clean, and as a man will give his life to pro-
tect her and her children, so will an upright nation, because of
its honour, not only protect but sacrifice itself for a righteous
cause. All may be lost save honour, for without honour man-
kind ceases to be human.

It is the family spirit which is the predominant instinct
in peace and war ; and when the nation is engulfed in woe,
in discord and unrighteousness, when righteous men can with
Gonzalo, that honest old counsellor, say : "All torment, trouble,
wonder and amazement inhabits here," then it is honour
which is the " heavenly power " which will guide us " out of
this fearful country ! " Honour is the essence of that fellow-
ship which Henry V. acclaims when he cries :

" That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart ; his passport shall be made,
And crowns of convoy put into his purse :
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us."

282 The Reformation of War

Honour includes esteem, respect, integrity and scorn of mean-
ness, and in a free and honourable nation every member of it,
however poor, has a citizen's right to be treated as an honourable
man. To despise a man because his calling does not coincide
with our own is a dishonourable act not only to the individual
but to the State itself.

The nation which depends for the security of its honour on some
international police force has become but a kept-woman among
nations. There is only one guardian of honour — a virile arm
backed by a virile brain. Again, a State which is not prepared
to defend its honour by a righteous war, and depends on the
benevolence of others to guarantee its existence when its life is
threatened, is but a paralytic living in an almshouse ; it has
scarcely the right to live, for it lacks the might to thrive.

WAR

If honour be worth safeguarding, war sooner or later becomes
inevitable, for, in this world, there are always to be found dis-
honourable men, and if war does not range a nation against
these, then must vice live triumphant. It is with this uncon-
tradictable quality in human nature set clear before him which
impelled Ruskin to write in his " Crown of Wild Olives " :

" I found that all great nations learned their truth of word, and
strength of thought, in war ; that they were nourished in war, and
wasted by peace ; taught by war, and betrayed by peace : in a word,
that they were born in war, and expired in peace.

"The habit of living light-heartedly, in daily presence of Death,
always has had, and must have, a tendency to the making and testing
of honest men.

" War in which the natural instincts of self-defence are sanctified by
the nobleness of the institutions, and purity of the households, which
they are appointed to defend : to such war as this all men are born ;
in such war as this any man may happily die ; and forth from such
war as this have arisen, throughout the extent of past ages, all the
highest sanctities and virtues of humanity."

In order to protect our homes and our institutions we must
not only protect our army and look upon it as our shield against
adversity, but we must determine whether the shield we have is

Epilogue 283

worthy to protect us. In this book I have examined the possi-
bilities of future warfare in order to lead up to this conclusion.
I feel that I have written enough to enable any intelligent citizen,
after he has studied what I have said, to turn to the army he is
paying for in order to maintain the peace which he enjoys and to
say : " Thou art, or thou art not, found wanting." If the former,
then it is he who can effect the change and not the soldier, who is
but an instrument directed by the policy which the civilian creates.
To-day, though we have but emerged from the greatest war
in history, never has England been more in need of a reliable
army, not only to defend her gates but to defend her hearths,
to maintain the policy chosen by her people against the wanton
desires of diseased fanatics — word-mongers, corner-boys of
literature and " Trafalgar-squared " crowds. To create or change
a policy is neither the right nor the duty of the soldier, for the sword
is the instrument of policy and not its fashioner. Unfortunately
for us, sedition gropes about the world, and as Launce said to his
dog : " O ! 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself
in all companies ; " so have we, for a space, to live in evil-smelling
surroundings. But only for a space, for the World Spirit is
abroad, he never rests ; sometimes he moves like a shadow,
sometimes with the stride of a giant — ever are his footsteps
measuring the earth. To each nation he is their national spirit,
and to us that spiritual voice which the greatest of Englishmen
still renders audible to all and resonant, even thunderous, to
many in the words of Philip the Bastard :

" O ! let us pay the time but needful woe
Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.
Now these her princes are come home again,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true."

Herein is the " Reveille " of the English race, and the " Last
Post " over her enemies 1

VALE

APPENDIX

The Procedure of the Infantry Attack. A Synthesis from a
Psychological Standpoint. R.U.S.I. Journal, January, 1914.

Training Soldiers for War. Book, October, 1914.

The Tactics of Penetration. A Counterblast to German
Numerical Superiority. R.U.S.I. Journal, November, 1914.

The Principles of War with Reference to the Campaigns of
1914-1915. R.U.S.I. Journal, February, 1916.

The Training of the New Army, 1803-1805. R.U.S.I.
Journal, November, 1916.

Instructions for the Training of the Tank Corps in France.
Pamphlet, December, 1917.

Infantry and Tank Co-operation and Training. Pamphlet,
March, 1918.

The Principles of War with Reference to the Campaigns of
1914-1917. Pamphlet, March, 1918.

The Influence of Tanks on Military Operations. The Ministry
of Munitions Journal, December, 1918.

Tanks in the Great War. Book, February, 1920.

The Development of Sea Warfare on Land and its Influence on
Future Naval Operations. R.U.S.I. Journal, May, 1920.

The Application of Recent Developments in Mechanics and
other Scientific Knowledge to Preparation and Training for Future
Wars on Land. R.U.S.I. Gold Medal (Military) Prize Essay for
1919. R.U.S.I. Journal, May, 1920.

The Influence of Tanks on Cavalry Tactics. A Study in the
Evolution of Mobility in War. Cavalry Journal, March, July
and October, 1920.

285

286 The Reformation of War

The Foundations of the Science of War. Army Quarterly,
October, 1920.

Moral, Instruction and Leadership. R.U.S.I. Journal, No-
vember, 1920.

The Introduction of Mechanical Warfare on Land and its
Possibilities in the Near Future. The Royal Engineer Journal,
January, 1921.

The Tank — Ten Little Pictures. Royal Military College
Magazine and Record, January, 1921.

The Secrets of Napoleon. The National Review, May, 1921.

The Evolution of Mechanical Warfare. Pamphlet, July, 1921.

Tanks in Future Warfare. The Nineteenth Century and
After, July, 1921.

The Purpose and Nature of a Fleet. The Nineteenth Century
and After, October, 1921.

The Tank — Ten Possibilities. Royal Military College Maga-
zine and Record, January, 1922.

Problems of Mechanical Warfare. Army Quarterly, January,
1922.

What Changes are Suggested in Naval Construction and Tactics
as a Result of {a) The Experiences of the War ? (b) The Develop-
ment of Submarine and Aerial Warfare in the Future? R.U.S.I.
First Naval Prize Essay for 1920. The Naval Review, February,
1922.

Economic Movement. The Civil and Military Possibilities
of Roadless Traction in the Near Future. Pamphlet, September,
1922.

The Influence of Aircraft on Imperial Defence. The Naval
Review, February, 1923.

Appendix 287

ARTICLES PRIVATELY PRINTED

Infantry and Tank Battle Formations.

Man's Place in Battle.

The Evolution of Mechanics in War.

The Influence of Petrol on Land Operations.

The Development of Gas and its Influence on Tank Warfare.

Naval Strategy and Tactics Applied to Land Warfare.

The Secret of Victory.

The Scottish War Cart and Zisca's Wagenburg.

Bloodless Means of Quelling Civil Disturbances.

Road Capacity and Cross-Country Traction.

Mechanical Warfare on Land and Sea.

Chinese Use of War Carts.

The Mechanical Policeman.

Strategical Paralysis as the Objective in the Decisive Attack.

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Puller, John Freder:'c Charles
The reformation of war

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