Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-02-19

Had these been needed at home Ger
man strategy would have scored. But
England could well afford TO spare
battleships and battle cruisers when
their absence meant the recovery Of
her South American trade. the net re-
suit of the victory off the Falkland is
lands on Dec. 8. victory which hum
bled the German flag on the high seas
Phenomenal Battle Losses.
Trustworthy data as to the relative
destructiveness of modern weapons
will not be available until revised Off
cial reports are at hand. 1t Is not
shown by the history of the evolution
of weapons that increased destructive
ness follows increased efficiency. Rela-
tive increase or decrease can be proved
only by percentages of the number hit
Ia the number engaged. The percent
age In recent wars has run as high as
90 per cent for small units and 40 to go
for divisions of COCO to 1000 men In
single engagements.
In the European war there have been
slaughters In spots. The civil war had
them at Antietam, Gettysburg. Chicka-
manga and Petersburg. A general
should get adequate returns for his in
vestment of lives; failure to do that
makes war a slaughter and not a
science.
Progress in contriving new ways to
kill in recent years has led to new
Ways of protecting soldiers. 1t has even
been argued that advance in protection.
has sped beyond advance In danger.
that wars will now be decided by long
range guns demolishing inanimate mat
ter. with minimum exposure of human
lives; a crash of metal rather than OF
flesh and bone.
Rifed cannon, shrapnel and grape
and canister were the nineteenth cen
fury answer to the bayonet, which had
doubled OF trebled the 2eath dealing
power of the man behind the musket-
The repeating rifle gave the individual
man long range canister to answer the
short range artillery canister. Later
repeating rifle answered repeating rife:
then came the machine gun to drown
both repeater and canister fire.
Modern Tactics Safer.
Increased d%eadliness Of firing does
not imply that the '.windrows of
dead" known in the days of spear and
battleax must return to the modern
battlefield. In field artillery alone the
bullet proof shield for gunners indi-
Gates the protective side in modern
equipment. In the civil war when the
infantryman's bayonet was outfought
by canister from a field battery he
took TO cover and shot down the en-
emy's gunners and battery horses. In
the sixties the log rampant and shall
low trench behind were the answer
to shrapnel and hurting shell In a pro.
tracted fight like the Aisne-Yser line
of 1914. A modern concealed trench Is
far ahead of logs and dirt rampant to
protect men, Not alone devices for
covering fighting men tend to mini.
mize mortality. but tactics work for
the same end Rushes of dozens led
by a sergeant carry forward under fire
the thousands which formerly charged
en- masse.
Secretary Of War Garrison says that
1t is much more difficult to kill men in
battle nowadays than is generally sup,
posed. Medical reports of the Russo
Japanese war. he says. show that out
of every hundred casualties 80 per
cent were caused by bullets; also that
in that war 1t took 10000 bullets ca
kill one man. Another authority says
that it took 1853 rifle shots to put one
Japanese u of the fight in 1904,
whereas in the Franco-Pfussian war
in 1870 one bullet in every 375 found
its mark.
Next to bullets come artillery shots
in effectiveness. In 1870 it required
eighty French shots, weight 66U
pounds, TO disable one German. but in
1904 $50 shots, weight nearly one ton,
were fired to disable one Russian.
Appalling accounts of slaughter. es.
pecially of Germans, have been given.
but at, their worst Geok-Tepe in the
Russo-Turkish war of 1881 leads in
arrange With breechioaders 1000
Russians slew 5000 Turks in one
uOur. Dehu Ddttic lilies nave Deeu ~
ported in the western zone. The writ
er saw one such at Antietam in 1862
when General Hooker's guns TO the
number of thirty swept with canister
a thirty acre field of standing corn
screening n Confederate line Of battle
In his official report Hooker said. I'm
the time | am writing every stalk of
corn in the northern and greater part
of the field was cut as closely as could
he lone with a knife" Along the
northern fence of that field lay. well
aligned, over a thousand dead In gray
Prisoners Counted In Losses.
1t appears from analysis of reports
of losses in Europe that when given in
gross for any hattie or campaign the
prisoners are included among the
missing" Where the classes are sep
- ~ - - uN--Ia-lL --a -