The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-12-20
The Modern Dictnsors--How They Rule
Ira in War.

lively at peace Now and then in Europe
progress throttled some feudal principle which
became prominent as the people compared the
new with the old and cast their fortunes with
the former. For nearly half century the
Old World had been tossing civilization about
like q football-kicked upwards first by the
masses against arstocratic prerogatives, and
by the ''grace Of God" as embodied in royal
rights, kicked back again only to be tossed the
higher at the rebound. The year 1861 found
Europe contented with the old and opposing
innovation, and, although far advanced, still
| clinging to the same methods of making war
that had characterized the campaigns of
Frederick the Great and of Napoleon I. The
navies were those of Copenhagen, of Trafal-
gar and the Nile. The armies chung to the
awkward old musket and in many cases the
flint lock. Artillery that sent shell or solid
shot two miles was the perfection of the ord
nance art. Military bridges were rarely bull t
in time of war so quickly as we now
throw them across rivers in time of
elements to accomplish all these things; but
up to Sadowa they had not felt their existence,
although after 1861 and during our rebellion
they began to study the effect of modern civil
zaton on the art of war.
| Before the attention of the United States
between attack and defence had been almost
equal. 1t is true, however, that defence had
been always little behind and that every
engineer was expected, like Vauban, to
besiege and take his best fertilization. Since
! our rebellion the war science is changed.
Greater and more powerful elements have
been applied-have, in fact, forced themselves
into operation The old has gone down before
the gigantic new. The navies of Trafalgar
| and the Nile have dropped to pieces at the
touch of the monitor and the iron-cad The
European musket has become fossil, while
is strained to its utmost capacity to supply the
breech-loading rifles demanded to equalize the
power Of nations. In artillery we sent shot
from distance of over five miles into Charles
ton. Europe could not have been more
astonished had we thrown q shell from New
York into Berlin. We opened a new era in
warfare and made it wave instead of
rivulet. Military bridges were thrown across
rivers like magic. Whole corps darnese
were moved with wonderful celebrity, with
all their material of war, to threatened
points by our new system of logistics.
We brought into play everything that was
thoroughly modern. The old military science,
as o science, was almost lost in more recent
appliances made military for the occasion.
The nation went into the field. 1t took its rail-
ways, its telegraphs and its steam machinery
with it and these were the dictators of the
men who were in the contest. Let it not be
supposed that all this was directed by chosen
body of picked officers, educated at the
| national expense. They did not create the
| monarchs whom we have mentioned, and
| generally allowed them to be brought into play
by the great army of the people, whose en-
gineers, skilled in their use, stopped neither at
old army theories nor other obstacles-as wit
ness the Red river dam, the iron-clad fleet on
the Mississippi and the "swamp angel battery
| in front of Charleston. The dictatorship which
lies in the hands of the telegraph, the railway
! and steam is irresistible, and proves one
thing-that we can rely upon civilization for
defence more than we can rely upon old
theories, be they of war or government. In
| Europe, up to the advent Of modern forces,
wars were slow, ran through generations, even
! when the question for which they were origi
| mated was one of vital moment.
| In the United States, in the era of the ele-
ments which are not only greatest in peace
| but greatest in war; we have once and for all
settled in four years question whch-down
| from Asia and Africa, through the Roman
| empire and through the feudal ages-we in
herited. The old relic Of feudalism turned us
| aside for momcnt-the Middle Ages stung the
nineteenth century without counting on the
power of civilization. We turned and launched
our modern three military arms against them,
and the result was only equalled by the rapid
| ity with which these arms and the men who
| welded them returned to the channel from
which they had for the moment been forced.
Now onward with them to greater victories |!
Soon we shall span the Continent and make the
heart of Asia beat when our pulse throbs
Europe does that now, and 1t threatens monarch
ical dissolution for class privileges which are
struggling against power they cannot attack,
power whose every step by steam, by rail-
way or by telegraph is victory.
| The British Press ON Our National Debt
l and Credit.
Some of the English newspapers, commenting
on the proceedings in Congress relative to the