The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-07

From the Washington Times. | There is unnecessary alarm in Chicago and other grain centers as to the pos ! sibility of the surplus grain of this coun- try being held here because of war. Eng | lands preservation depends upon keeping the ocean free to it's commerce. It would starve to death otherwise. The one fixed idea of Great Britain has been that it must control the sea Con | sequently it has maintained fleets that are incomparably superior to those of any other nation. The one aim of British | statesmanship has been to maintain sea power that no probable combination of enemies could overwhelm.
 l When there has been talk of curtailing naval establishments it has been England l that has returned the answer non pos 1 sumus. She has said to Germany: Naval | power with you is matter of pride, and ambition. and business. With us it is matter of life or death" Consequently
 she has always been prepared to go to any extreme to preserve and safeguard her supremacy upon the sea.
 There may be surprise in store. but un-
 less there has been woeful miscalculation
 in Englands plans and policies the sea will be safe. There will be a well-guarded
 ocean highway to the ports of Great Brit ain and her allies.
 In the event of war they will need all
 the food this country can spare them, and
 they will get it.
 Henry M. Hyde, in Chicago Tribune. The glory and the romance of war is
 dead It has become chiefly a matter of
 cold calculation, 8 bloody business of Hong distance slaughter, with no longer
 any opportunity for dashing personal
 heroism.
 Never again can Napoleon. looking down from a hill top, direct the move
 ments of his army of s0,000 men as 1t
 maneuvers under his eye on the plain
 below.
 The modern general directing a bat
 tie line 15o miles long-such as the
 Japanese had at Mukden-will never
 be within sight of his troops. oyama, the Japanese chief of staff, was 50 miles to the rear when that great battle was fought.
 II Never again will a courier, bearing orders from headquarters to division and corps commanders, have two horses
 shot under him as he dashes across the battle front Orders go out today from
 headquarters over the field telephone wires, which reach every brigade com
 mander, as he. too, sits in safety far back of the line of fire.>
 Never again will a battery of field
 guns gallop madly into action, with
 the gunners sitting with crossed arms
 on the caissons and the infantry cheer
 ing their rescuers.
 Modern field guns are located out of
 sight over the shoulder of hill. three
 miles or more away. The gunners never
 even get sight of the army they are firing at. Their fire is guided by cal
 culations carefully made by an expert } mathematician, who sits down in hole } in the ground and figures trajectories : and curves and makes allowances fol } wind pressure.
 Hold your fire until you see the whites of the enemy's eyes" is ar / heroic command that will never b,
 given in a modern battle. I Modern infantry dig themselves { : nice, deep ditch in the ground about t two miles away from the first of tn, t enemys lines. To the present day sol . dier the spade is almost as importan as the gun. He gets down into his ditci so that only his eyes and the top O
 his head are in sight at all. And h,
 looks across an apparently perfectl. v empty plain to where in the dim dis
 tance he is told the hostile intrech :. lments lie.
 Never in a modern battle picture will a solid column of charging men b.
 shown rallying round their cherished battle flag, which can be seen but dim :, fly through the clouds of black smoke d There are no battle flags, no smoke ,s land no charging columns on moderl
 battlefelds. The presence of a flag ol l. lthe battle line would instantly revea l. Its location to the enemy. Snlokeles h powder has taken the place of the ol Il. cloud belching explosive, and one ma r. look over modern battlefield with l. hundred field guns in action and not b le able to locate one of them. As fo m solid columns of charging men--a mod lc ern infantry attack Is a far differen III affair
 at On almost any modern battlefield 1 l. will be found that each of the contend c. ling parties will have in its possessio
 maps showing every most minute varI