The National tribune., 1909-06-17
ENGLANps FUNNY WAR SCARE.

ENGLAND,s FUSNY WAR SCARE.
People are generally fools about war
scares. but the funniest OF all Oh TINS
class are the fits which the Ensnsn
people are fhrowins over a possible M
vasion by German airships. Inc
markable flight of. Count Zeppeiii oa
loon for s25 miles has greatly acceh-
tuated the scare and the Ensiish pa
pers and speakers are lashing .he peo-
pie into q great excitement. AS usuai.
no one seems to dsit down with pencii
and paper nand figure out the maine
matics Of the expected invasion. Count
Zeppelins great balloon. which carrieu
only few persons, was about SUI 1eet
long and some SO feet wide. There
would be no use in attempting de
scent upon England, with its very dehse
population and its strong pooles oi
troops in easy supporting distance oi
one another by rail, with less than wv
600 German soldiers. If we should as
sumo that balloon approximately tne
size of Count Zeppelin's would carry as
many as SO soldiers, it would take ~
of them to carry battalion Oh i,ooo
men and 1000 to carry 100000 A heet
of this size would cover large portion
of the German Empire, would exhaust
all the materials in the world to puiid
it, and with the workingmen hard at II
day and night would take very many
months to build and equip. The total
cost would be greater than that OF
building several Dreadnoughts, and all
the preparations would be SO extensive
as to convulse the world and give Eng
land abundant time to concentrate
troops enough to defend an army sew
eral times that proposed to be landed.
The whole thing seems to be about
the most absurd Of all the wildly ab-
surd war scares which have ever con-
vulsed any people, and 1t is remarkable
that men as intelligent as the English
| men are should allow themselves to be
thrown off their balance by anything so
| innately silly.
| Apropos of this it will be remembered
that Napoleon once contemplated an
| invasion of England, and started an
army of men to building batteaux at
Boulogne to cross the narrow channel.
He had not gone very far in the work
when he saw the absolute futility of
building sufficient number of boats to
convey his troops, and the impossibility
after they were built of getting his
troops across the channel. To conceal
his failure and distract the attention OF
his people, he started another conti-
mental war. Napoleon's scheme was
Ear more practical than that of airships.
Probably Tennyson had much to dc
with shaping the minds Of the people
so as to make them receptive OF this
war scare. Seventy years ago he wrote:
For I dipt into the future. far as hui
man eye could see,
lSaw the vision ofthe world, and all the
wonder that would be:
ISaw the Heavens fill with commerce,
argosies Of magic sails.
IPiIots Of the purple twilight. dropping
down with costly bales.
Heard the Heavens fill with shouting
and there raIh'd ghastly dew
From the Nations airy navies crap
pling ia the central blue;
Far along the worldwide whisper Of
- the south wind rushing warm,
With the standards OF the people p1ung
I ing thru the thunder Storm"
This was only a poets dream, and II
absolutely impracticable. as poets
dreams are only too likely to be. Th'
British Isles are very small country
having altogether only 121.391 square
miles This is not so large as Ohio, In
diana and Illinois, and on this is packed
a. population of 42,000,000. In Eng
land and Wales the population reaches
about 600 to the square mile, and we
know what sturdy fighters the English
and Welsh are. Even q well-drillet
German army Of 100000 men would
have a terribly hard time. with newt
able destruction, in lighting into sucf
a hornets nest as it would find upoI
descending anywhere in England.
The veteran Marshal Won Moltke sait
once that he had many plans for get
ting into England, but he had nevel
been able to form one for getting out
This contains the whole truth, as it &
the truth about any invasion of thi
country, and the English war scare 4
supremely ludicrous.