Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1897-12-23
MODEM ARMIES.
Their IarE~ncss Has - Tendency 10 mnhs
Them Iun"bIlr.

Them IuInhrbil".
We arc by no means sure that ar
mics at the end of the nineteenth
century are not to some extent i'll
the condition of tho armies of tho
last few years of the eighteenth cen
fury Nuduubt the modern generals
are. or, shall W" say seem, less
sleepy headed than tho old bewig-
grd Nu~trian~ and PrussiauS, though
they. il must hC remembered, were
III their day rCCkOnCd men of science.
But at the same time we suspect that
Il good deal of our modern military
organization has become stiff and
impractical We shall he told, no
doubt, that the PrusSian army went
like CloCkwurk in 1870, but we must
be allowed to doubt whether the
cl0CkwOrk il quite as good now as
it was then, in spite of appearances.
Besides, Prussia had just tho very
force opposed to her in 1870 against
which good ClOCkwork would be
sure to prcvail-a piece of bogus
military mechanism. Whether Prus
STA would have had ~ easy q victory
If some ErCnChman had arisen Capa-
bile of organizing and using n really
mobile force of Go, coo men is anoth-
er question. 1t is possible that such
IA spCarhCad stuck into tho clock
work might have done n great deal
of damage. That, however, is spec
ulatiOn. What wo do know is that
the Prussian army was a splendid
fighting organism at the end of tho
Seven Years war, and that at Jena,
some 80 years after, it proved utter
ly unable to meet Napolcon's quick,
tiCrCo assault
In spite, then, of the magnificent
organization of the present Euro
pCan armies and of their vast size,
we believe ii to bO quite possible
that some now Alexander may arise
who will organize Il new method OF
fighting which. for Il time, ut any
rate, may bring all their far stretch
eel greatness To ruin. OF course such
Il genius IN the art of war may new
er get to the front, but that his op-
pOrtunity exists in the present bloat-
cd ornaments we have no sort of
doubt. Yet, it will be said, how about
thoritics agree that III the end, and
considering that the European ma
tons are practically equal in cour-
age and morale, the way to win a
battle is to confront five men of the
enemy with eight, or, if possible,
ten, mon of your own. That proves
that the big armies will always beat
the Smailt BY no means. 1t is be-
cause we entirely and absolutely &C
quiesco i'll the big battalions theory
-" Providence is on the side of the
big battalionS, was Napoleon's die
tum--that we hold that small and
properly organized mobile armies
will beat the huge, unwieldy armies
that the modern European strate-
gists contemplate putting into the
field Remember, your big battal-
ions must confront the little battal-
ion not on paper, hut on the ground ;
hence, If body of 20, 900 men can
be swiftly and suddenly confronted
with II bOuy of 10000. the big bat
tallOns rule IL on the side of the
40, 600. The fact that the 20, 900 be
long to an organization which has
II couple of hundred thousand men
behind il does not matter. Unless
the 200, 600 men are available at the
moment they do not count.
An extremely mobile army, ready
to spring first i'll one direction and
then III another, is quite capable of
beating an army three or four times
its size and beating it always by
having Il substantial majority of
combatants i'll every actual engage
ment OF course the big army may
be SO splendidly organized that it
will be quite as mobile, if not more
mobile, than the small army. In
that case the small army will be
swallowed whole. All we contend
is that the huSoncss of the European
armies tends to make them immo-
bile and that, therefore, it is always
possible that some clever invention
in the direction of intense mobility
may give victory to small and APP
parently not particularly we'll found
army in other respects.
Snectator.