Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1859-05-27
Modern Science in tho Coming war;

/ We are apparently on the eve of the most
| tremendous armed conflict which the world has
seen since the downfall OF Napoleon the Great
The wars Of imperial France were bloody
wars all the world knows No slaughtered
| hetcatombs were ever piled so high as the En-
peror piled them. The dead never lay so thick
| ly on any battle AcI.t; Of which history makes
any montion, ~ they lay on Borodino, and
| FvIau. and Waterloo. What amount of dcs-
! truetion aud misery science, in the hands of
genius could ina given time, deal out on a.
given nul!Tfjer Of men was there amply dem.
I onstratcd.
Bu il is not saying 700 much to say that il
| the European powers let their armed hordes
: loose upon one another this summer, ruthless
destroyer as Napoleon was, he will be shown
before three years are over to have been mere
tyro in the art of destruction. Since his day
all the arts have advanced with rapid strides,
but none with strides SO rapid as this one
The weapons with which soldiers were armed.
with which the bridge of Lodi was carried, and
Austcrlitz and Marcngo JFePe Ron, bear much
the same relation to iSe rife Of the present day,
as the matchbox bore to the old frelock.--
Death did not in his time fash from serried
ral!k uilti the fo9lncn stood two or three hum
dred wards apart. Now it flies in the air near
Iy three quarters Of 81 milc as far as the sharp
est cEc can mark human figure. His siege
artillery would he to-day by no means heavy
field pieces. Wen.ton's heaviest preaching
guns at Badajos and Salamanca were twenty
'ba Tl,tcyiopc n TuIro
and the British at the Tchcrrays, brought
thirty-two FOUNDERS into the icld with ease
aud effect Bu1 the advantage which heavy
guns have always had over light ones hitherto. -
for the ordinary purposes of field artillery, has
been rather in the length of the range than in
the size of the ball. 4 twelve FOUNDER rushing
through a coilmn Of inlanty is fully as des-
tructive. and almost as demoralizing' as one
treble its weight but formerly it could not be
projected near so far. Silence has, in our days
destroyed the difference between them Re-
cent inventions, some of those of our own
countrymcn, some of Engshmen, and some of
the present Emperor Of France, have furnished;
light field pieces, which horses whirl at tire
widest gallop. from point to point, with more
than he deadly power which, forty years ago,
belonged only to wpeapons which sixteen her,
could move with dif1icultyand which were all
ways pieces de position.
Moreover, facilities have been created since
Waterloo was fought for bringing together
masses of men thus armed, and dashing them
against one another, such as the great Napo-
leon in his widest dreams never dreamed Of
We all know how the rapidity of his movements
tlazzled and astouuded cur fathers We know
I i,
taking armies up as it seemed in those days in
tue hollow of his hand, and Ainging them il the
twinkling Of an eye on every point where his
giant plans needed them. We know how dis
tance seemnd to shrivel up at the blast of'his
trumpet. We know how the pupils Of TureAne
and Montecuculli rccoiled in dismay before 1e-
gions which struck Ike "a thunderbolt after
having advanced like the wind. But ggeit as
was the perfection to which he carried the art
of rapid concentration, it becomes the cr1aWfin;S
of a turtle when compared with the power
with which railways have armed the geferdfs
ofour day. When Napoleon started in his
expeditions, armies were Of necessity dfTideti
into columns, which, in order TO secure the bstA'
means Of subsistence and Of transport were
compelled either to follow each other at toier
ably long intervals or else march on the SANE
point by different circuitOus routes. And they
did march-Iiterally marchci, trudged every
inch of the way on foot and the eagle tapped
his wings over them in appreciation if they
achieved fifty miles in twenty-lour hours: The
maddest inpatienee of the maddest condderoi-F
had in those days to adapt itself to the capabi--
ties of human legs and human stomaehs.
1t took, even in the hands of Napoleon, a.
and men at a point three hundred miles distant;
and when they were there it required stupenH-
dous resources to iced them. AAthe grand
old heroes had to take pork and -four into their
grandest calculations, and pork and -four, alasi
have to be carried about to be of any use
The other day we were told in contrast with
this, that the present emperor was able to send
twenty-five thousand men in day from Paris
to Lvons-a distance of about three huntref
miles. 1t would have taken his uncle week Of
I to,rcd marches TO accomplish the same object.
Austria is sending troops into Italy at the Same
rate Moreover. the same power which renders
this rapid concentration oftroopS so easy, rendG
ers their subsistence while concentrated just as
easy. The railroad dumps the soldiers now-sl
day, down on the battlefield and the next day
dumps down a months provisions in their rear.
: The telegraph, W. need hardly say, plays a
wonderful part in this change as the railroad
/ Ono Of Nopolcons generals would have requf
/ ed four or five days to ask for reinforcement.
which he now asks for in as many minutes. Ii
reaches him in as many hours as it would then
have taken days.
/ The destructivenes5 of the changes which
these new instruments are likely TO introduce
into warfare has not, SO far, attracted as mnch
attention as it ought, because within the last
thirty years We have had no wars in the part
If the world in which science could render the
soldier efficient; and what science has done IN
that interval to make war mere sanguinsry VIII
only aupear when the sword is drawn IN couh-
tries like Italy and Germany, which are blessed
or cursed. with all the modern improvements
Having armed the combatants with the means
of DESTROYING life all around him, witnln
a radius of Thousand yards, 1t hurts MN
against his foe at the rate of thirty miles an
hour. There is an abySs of human misery re-
ycaled by even tcn minutes reaection,oa such
a theme as this, which no one who has ever
seen it IN ito most harmless aspect, can contem-
Mate without Il shudder.--N. L. Post.
= The jackson MiSsissippian' a hr"eanng
iournal. which is anxious the South shad'd go