The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1912-05-02
MODERN WARFARE
LESS MURDEROUS?

There are not wanting authorities
with reference to things military who
aver that the improvement in arms
has actually rendered warfare less
destructive, and that in these days of
is much less than it was in the old
days of muskets, of bows and arrows
and of hand to hand conflicts. In ad-
dition, it may be pointed out that
the modern wars have been merciful-
ly shorter, and so less sanguinary
than those of the centuries gone.
Under the primitive conditions of
fighting, when gunpowder was I'M
known, wars drifted on for genera
lions, even for centuries. England
waged wal with Scotland almost
without intermission for a hundred
years, and for a like period with
France. The Thirty Years war and,
later, the Seven Years war, are
epochs in military history.
Our own Civil war, though fought
with Misunderstanding guns, lasted but
four years. About a year thereafter
Prussia overcame Austria in seven
short weeks, and in 1871 the German
power overwhelmed that of France in
some eight months. 1t took Uncle
power of Spain in two a
If the figures of history are correct
terrible slaughter reigned in the old
days when men met in hand-to-hand
conflict and quarter was neither ask
ed nor given. In 451 A. D., at the
battle of Chalons, when Attila the
Hun and the Roman legions under
Aetius met, it is said that not fewer
than 100000 men were slain. Indeed,
by some the number of killed has
been placed as high as 900, 1000. At
Hastings some 10000 men fell,
though the numbers engaged were
small in comparison with those in
modern battles.
We are told that at the Metaurus
Hasdrubal's Carthaginians were prac.
tically annihilated. At Aquae Sex.
tiae and Verzellae the Cimbri and
Teutons were completely exterminat-
ed by Marius; a hundred years later
10000 Romans were wiped out by
Arminius in Teutoberg Forest, and
$4,000 Roman citizens of the Greek
cities were slain in a single day by
the soldiers of Mithridates. At Crecy
there fell 1000 French knights, 1,400
gentlemen and 1000 men at arms, be.
sides 10000 of inferior rank; 10000
men were killed at A%gincourt and
$4,000 were taken prisoners; and
about 10000 men, too, weres lain out
of the 10000 who fought at Flodden;
while out of the 100. 900 engaged in
the fierce battle of Towton $4,000 are
reported to have fallen in the battle
and pursuit.
In all thes old-time battles, where
the weapons were bows and arrows,
swords and battle axes, and where no
weapon was available that could kill
at a distance of more than a few hun.
dred yards, the mortality frequently
rose to one in every three or four
fighters engaged, and sometimes ex.
ceeded this enormous percentage;
whereas in modern battles, with
weapons far more deadly, a proper.
ton of n in twenty, it is claimed,
has rarely been exceeded.
At Alma the casualties were fifty.
four a thousand, or, roughly, one to
1875; at Inkerman they were one in
twenty; at Sedan, one in sixty; at
Gravelotte, n in a hundred and
eleven, and at Waterloo, one in TWEEN.
ty-four. In the Crimean war it has
been ca1cu1afod 7do shots /.
quired to dispatch one fighter, and at
Gibraltar 25S,387 shot and shell louna
only 1,341 human targets, and of
these many were merely wounded.
During the Franco-Prussian war one
fighter was disabled by every 254
shots.