Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-10-11
GEN. NILES RETURN
Ke Tells Some Interesting Things
About His Trip.
BALLOONS And BICYCLES IN WAR
Extensive Use Abroad of American
Made Guns.
THIS COUNTRY MIGHT

| General Nelson A. Miles and his aid-de-
| camp, Captain Maus, have returned to this
| city from a five months tour of Europe
| during which they inspected everything
! OF military interest, from the great armies
! of Germany, Russia, France and Great
Britain in field action down TO balloons
and BICYCLES as he remarked to a Star
| reporter who called upon him in his ortice
at the War Department this morning.
HE was so busy receiving calls from his
| brother officers and his many friends in
| this city that he was able to give only a
| few minutes to The Star man, but in that
| tlme he managed to tell some interesting
'hiiss ABOUT his trip. He looks rugged
| anu "eil ana Is the picture of good health
| DurinS his absence ne employed his time
| 10 the very best advantage, and ne re-
| marked that in five months he went oyer
pretty much the same ground that occu,ied
MS predecessor, General Sherman nearly
years time. He looked over f,rtifiro
IONS, barracks, camps, ordnance works of
1if. iti etasses ana al the mnutae of military
me IN ana out of camp. He has already
maue ue tnree reports of his observation of
inherent features of European military and
e&Pects TO prepare another and more com
PieuensiVe one as soon as he finds the time
| IN this he will be assisted by Cantain Ma,,s
me report Will be important as II will
empody many recommenda tions for the inn
States. "a e @''i'eu
During his tour Gen. Miles mat n,ost or
.lie ruiers OF Europe, including Queen Vic
tolia' the Car of Russia, the president of
ana andhce, C tne sultan of Turkey and the King
ana crown Prince of Greece
In matters of detail Gen. Miles. will b,,a
| GOOD zeal to say ir his report that will
be novel and Interesting. " Ia
Use of Balloons.
one feature of the maneuyers which
were conducted on a grand scale in four of
'he european countries that attracted the
speciai attention of Gen. Miles because IT
Is as yet lacking in our own military sys-
TEN 10 any apprecfable degree was the use
oi balloons In field operations, not from
nxed points, but on movable bases. For in
stance at st. Quentin which was the scene
OF the FRENCH maneuvers, a balloon fioated
halt mile up in the air. 1t was attached
py capie and telephone wires to a wagon
uraWn Dy eight horses, and this team was
galloped over the field at a rapid rate. en-
abHng the observer aloft to scan a vast ex-
panse Of country. The rapid motion of the
eailoorl, s TOO, made it very difficult mark
Tor gunners trying to bring it down. So
1ar our own army has only one balloon, and
not much has been done with this
another point noted by General Miles was
the large use made in Europe of American
weapons, particularly machine, rapid-fire
ana small guns. At Aldershot every one of
the British regiments that swept past in
review was followed by machine gun of
American invention. The entire British
army was armed with a rifle designed by
an American and the Germans have be-
gun the purchase quietly of a number of
these American machine guns Russia also
uses American ideas in her army and il is
not doubted that only the enormous ex-
pense of making change in the present
system has operated to prevent the French
from adopting the same machine and rapid
fire guns.
General Miles spoke in terms Of high
commendation of the Russian army, and
he referred to the fact as important that
1t was even better equipped than the Ger
man army in one point. namely, in having
tents, the Germans relying upon billeting
their soldiers upon the towns of the hostile
country plan which might prove to be a
fatal weakness in an emergency such as
would follow the total destruction by flee
ing inhabitants of their towns
Speaking broadly, General Miles said he
did not believe that much advancement
had been made in the past five years in the
science of war, as revealed in the European
maneuverS.
Power of the United States
To a question as to whether the United
States, under its present military policy,
would be able to cope with a European
power, Gen. Miles replied:
I'm any population, 1t is estimated, one
man out of five is capable of bearing arms.
That would give us an army of 12,OO0, 600.
Our people are strong, physically and gen.
orally intelligent and well-informed; be-
sides that. each citizen Is a sovereign and
personally interested in the welfare of his
government, and serves voluntarily, with
out being forced into service by a military
despotism. We have many thousands of
men still living who have seen more war,
participated in more battles, than any men
in Europe. But it is another thing to equip
an army with modern appliances for the
defense of the coast, where we would have
to use high power guns and modern pro-
jectiles, which it takes years to construct,
few days or weeks Modern rifles are diff
ferent from the squirrel guns with which
our revolutionary fathers went to war. The
range Of modern arms is very great, and
projectiles weigh from 700 pounds to a ton
of steel. The rapidity of the rapid-fire ma
chine guns-the Maxim and Gatling-is 400
to 600 shots minute. Although these are
American inventions, they are largely used
in European service"
In conclusion, Gen. Miles remarked: '.I
have never seen a day since l have been
away when I have failed to appreciate our
own country, it's institutions, system of
government and people. I have been sur
prised that SO little is known of us in Eu-
rope, but interest here is centered on India
Africa and Siberia, and European papers
have more to say of their affairs and the
colonies than about America"
CAR ROLLS DOWN EMDANKMENT.