The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-22
CHANGES OF PRIVATE SOLDIER ID ESCAPE
Greater Now Than Ever Before, Says Writer in
 London Ideas

--AiooerH WdrIdre seems deSperate- ly cold -blooded business. says writer in London Answers
 It is not now so muck a question of the man. He is still, of course a neces- sacy unit, but efficiency of equipment and scientific war machinery are the telling forces Sweeping war planes sea tier the death-dealing lyddite into the sleeping camp. The trenches with ther splitting rifles, and the whirring of concealed machine guns. or the deep CT tones of the howitzers dirge, cast death at the unseen. or almost unseen enemy.
 If veteran of Waterloo could look upon our modern methods he would have difficulty in keeping the grim smile from his lips. Gin his day the whole game was to get as near to your man ss possible, and show what you thought of him at the point of the bayonet should your musket fail to make the desired impression.) But the old soldier would find that our modern warfare is, comparatively speaking, humane when one considers the enormous number of men engaged
 
 the battlefield. the tendency of scien- tific warfare is to diminish it. In the early days of hand to hand struggles, it followed that either of the com bataEts must be killed or injured. In such conflicts the slaughter was terrific. The Roman legionary, in the heat of battle, got within a few paces of his enemy. hurdled his deadly plum ard the discharge of that weapon was 4<<1l Ix.- ~tx IL quarters.
 The almost complete annihilation of the Gcths at Naissus is a ghastly tri- bute to the effectiveness of Roman arms. The Roman knew nothing of lyddite or dumdum bullets, yet. it is stated, that on that day upward of 100,- 900 Goths fell upon the field-the un- raraIleled record of war.
 To Edward I of England is assigned the discovery of the value of the long bow archer in warfare. At Falkirk he raked the Scottish square with the new arm, and even the skill and valour of Wallace could not avert a defeat att tended by the slaughter of nearly half his army. The English long-bow was pow erful factor in victories of Greasy. Poi tiers Aginccurt and Flodden. At Cressy the carnage was fearful. On that day the French lost 12o0 knights and 5000 footmen out of an army of 10000
 The invention of firearms gradually busted the cloth-yard from the field of battle, and England thereby lost one of the most murderous instruments of war fare she ever possessed. The formation of troops on the modern battlefield would of course, render the effectiveness of the cloth-yard practically nil; but in the day of archery dense masses of men moved toward each other doing battle almost without thought of taking cover and the trained archer. with a range of 300 yards, saw to it that every shaft found its billet
 "The Guards want powder, and, by God. they shall have it!'' And they got their powder, or Waterloo would never squares been composed of archers, volley- ing their lightning-lke showers of cloth yards at such close quarters, there would have been less of the enemy in retreat,
 It is computed that one ton of lead was fired away for every man killed in the Napoleonic wars. while the English yeoman could boast that for every shaft in his culver he carried foeman's life
 It Is certain that since the intro- duction of the breechloader the pro portion of lives lost in battle has con- Sderably decreased. Tn the period of the French wars the slaughter wrought by the old musket was terrific. The formation of troops in line and column, with little or no attempt to take ad- vantage of cover. gave the musket bullet wide chance of finding even Ia random mark Tho fearful losses of opposing armies in the past can be better understood by few Illustrations.
 During the Duke of Marlborou gh' s campaign, the allied armies at the bat tie of Blenheim consisted of about 50.000 each. When the night fell the French and Bavarians left 12.0o0 dead on the field. besides 1S.000 of their men prisoners; while the English and Dutch counted their loss at 12. .500. This means the appalling percentage of one man killed or wounded out of every four engaged.
 At Jena the Prussian loss was 21,- 900 out of 105.000. and the French 1s,- 900 cut of 90.000: proportion of one | in five. At Eylau the Russians lost 26. 0c0 out of 7s.00O; the French 30.000 out of S5.000. One in three! At Espern, the scene of Napoleon's first defeat, the ca rnage was still greater. Out of an army of 10000 one-half were left upon the field.
 Hut even this butchery pales before 1 that of Borodino in the Moscow cam paign, for on that field the French left | 5NOC0 dead and wounded out of 1S2,000 engaged and the Russians 45.000 out | of the same number. That bloody work was done on a single September day, with the old flint lock musket and smooth bore cannon. aided by sabre and Ibayonet.
 The only battle in the latter half of
 the nineteenth century that can com of Sadowa in 1866. which ended the