The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-04-17
WHAT WAR MAY BE LIKE.
Some specuIations as to tn e Probabii
ca :ties of Future European Conflicts,
(From the Pail Mall Gazette.)

(Frem the Pail Mall Gazette)
The horror of the next big war is the
waking nightmare of Europe. The
vastness of the forces engaged, the
tremendous power of modern weapons,
the financial ruin that will overtake the
beaten side-all these considerations
tend to stagger imaginations a good
deal more solid than those of peace
crusading emotionalists. The bishop of
Manchester, a level-headed man if ever
there was one, kept we'll within reason
able argument when he enlarged at
the Manchester town meeting last
night upon the black future that may
be preparing for us through the devel-
opments of modern militarism. 1t may
be remarked, by the way, that the ter
ror inspired by the new inventions in
explosives and ordnance has been the
chief cause of the long period of peace
that the continent, as a whole, has en-
joyed; so that an arrest of ornaments,
if ever brought about, would tend rath-
err to precipitate warfare than to avert
it, But more profitable line of
thought is to be discovered in the lee
ture delivered by Col. Elmslie at AL
dershot last night, on THE possible
effect on tactics of recent Improvements
in weapons"
He agrees with the German military
critics in foretelling that the secret
victory will lie within the brain of the
commander. The big battle, and with
it the campaign, will be decided by
sudden and decisive operations, de-
pending upon skill in making use of the
nature of the ground and employing
the art of invisibility. The side that
can make good a tactical point and
stick to it will hold an immense adj
vantage in the tug of war. That is to
say, every effort will be put forth to
make the most of the artillery and rifle
attack. A fire concentrated upon one
spot to beat down the fire of the enc
my Will be the grand stroke for which
the Moltke of the future will play. To
that end he will study topography with
the assiduity of a scholar porting over a
m-eaten manuscript. He will train
his troops to be mobile for every emer-
gency, and his officers will be taught to
act on the spur of the moment. A series
of rushes, masked by the quick-firing
gun, the machine-gun and the maya
zine rifle, will settle the fortunes of the
day One position gained will form the
basis for the next, until the beaten
army, completely outmaneuvred will
either take to It's heels or capitulate.
Warfare, in short, will resolve itself
more than ever into a huge game Of
chess, in which the winner will be the
greater master of combinations and
striking power.
The deductions to be drawn from
Colonel Elmslie'y lecture, paradoxical
though they may seem, are not neces-
sarily in favor of vast amount of
slaughter. If the European armies
were to rush upon their doom, as the
dervishes did at Omdurman, the field
howitzers would, no doubt, pile them
up in heaps of corpses But, as the
lecturer remarked, the forces of the
continent will probably be found to
possess but little of the sticking power
of the emir's magnificent's fanatics
They will be composed Of conscripts
taken sorely against their will from
the counter and the tail of the plough.
The increase of range has necessitated
the need of greater numbers to guard
against an enveloping fire, and that
again has added to the number of cow
ards. The veteran soldier has practice
ally disappeared during the long Pc
riod of peace, and the statistics COM
piled by the German general staff tend
strongly to the conclusion that the ca
pacity to stand up against artillery de-
ponds entirely upon the percentage of
old mustaches in the ranks.
The armies, then, that VIII decide the
fate of Europe will be composed of
civilians in military uniform, whose
nerves will be tried by the terrors of
unknown scientific inventions for hours,
perhaps, before they get a fair chance
of replying. 1t should follow that, af-
ter a really decisive move on the at
lacking side, the officers of the de-
Tense will be unable to keep their men
together The temptation of a snug
carriage on the strategic railway will
prove too strong for lads who are little
better than raw recruits, and the chief
object of their general will be to pre-
vent the retreat from degenerating in
to a. rout And with the improvement
in the range of projectiles increasing
the distance between the two armies,
the beaten force will get a much long
er start than it did such a compare
lively short time ago as 1870. This,
again, should make for victories far
less bloody than the amateur strategist
imagines since the pursuer will find 1t
beyond human endurance to overtake
and overwhelm. We may add that the
conscience of Europe, as expressed,
however imperfectly, in its diplomacy,
will recoil from the spectacle of an ar
nv being butchered like sheep in the
shambles, and that Old Guards, which
die but never surrender, will become
even more mythical than that of Wat
erloo. What then, if warfare, instead
tof resolving itself into carnage on an
unprecedented scale, should revert to
the theatricalities of the renaissance in
which armies Unanswered and counter
maneuVered. but very few were kiHed?
The theory may sound startling, but it
NAV. nevertheless, be realized, now
that the soldier is educated and has
been persuaded by men of science that
he is neurotic.