Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-09-03

The Opportunity of Some Future
Alexander.
From the London Spectator

From the London Spectator.
We are by no means sure that.the armies
at the end of the nineteenth century are
rot TO some extent in the condition of the
armies of the last few years of the eight
zenith century. No doubt the modern gen
erals are or shall we say seem, less sleepy
headed than the old bewigged Anstrians
and Prussans, though they, it must be
remembered, were in their day reckoned
men of science but at the same time we
expect that a good deal OF our modem
military organization has become stiff and
impractical We shall be told, no doubt,
that the Prussian army went like clock
work in 1870. but must be allowed to
doubt whether the clockwork is quite as
good it was then. in spite of ap-
pearances. Besides, Prussia had just the
very force opposed to her in 1870 against
which good cockWork would be sure to
prevail-a piece of bogus military mechan-
ISM Whether Prussia would have had as
easy a victory If some Frencnman had
arisen capable of organizing and using a
really mobile force of 10000 men is another
question. 1t is possible that such a spear
head stuck into the clcckwork might have
done a great deal # damage That, how
ever, is speculation. What we do know is
that the Prussan army was splendid
fighting organism at the end of the seven
years war. and that at Jena, some forty
years after, it proved utterly unable to
IL.
In spite. then, of the magnificent organ
iZation of the present European armies
and of their vast size, we believe it to be
quite possible that some new Alexander
may arise who will organize a new method
Of fighting which. for time at any rate
may bring all their far-stretched great
ness to ruin. OF course such a genius in
the art of war may never get to the front
but that his opportunity exists in the pres
ent bloated ornaments we have no sort of
doubt. Yet it will be said, how about the
big hattalions. All military authorities
agree that IN the end, and considering that
the European nations are practically equal
in courage and morale, the way to win q
battle IS to confront five men of the enemy
with eight, or If possible ten, men of your
own. That proves that the big armies will
always beat the small? BY no means. 1t
is because we entirely and absolutely ac-
quiesce in the big battalions theory
"Providence is on the side of the big bat
talions," was Napoleons dictum-that We
mobile armies will beat the huge, un-
wiedly armies that the modern European
strategists contemplate putting into the
field. Remember your big battalion must
confront the little battalion, not on paper
but on the ground. Hence, if a body of
10000 men can be swiftly and suddenly
confronted with body of 10000 the big
battaiions rule is on the side of the 40 600
The fact that the 10000 belong to an organ
iZation which has a couple of hundred
thousand men behind it does not matter.
Unless the 100000 men are available at the
moment they do not count.
An extremely mobile army, ready to
spring first in one direction and then in
another, is quite capable of beating an
army of three or four times its size. and
beating it always, by having a substantial
majority of combatants in every actual
engagement 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 con-
tend is that the hugeness of the European
armies tends to make them immobile, and
that, therefore, it is always possible that
some clever invention in the direction of
intense mobility may give victory to
small and apparently not particularly we'll
found army in other respects