Evening star., 1915-12-26

guns and driven every infantryman
into the shelter of u dugout II II hasn't
buried him. Thus. the French gained
the ground they won in. Champagne
Der: but they had been practicins
war only year and they may not
know how. Suppose the same thing
happened to the freemen as to trained
soldiers when the wire is not cut.
They get hung up in it." as they say;
They can't go back or forward. The
machine guns in the trench are de- .
pressed a little and they turn the bull :.
let stream .on the fellows in the barbed'
wire.
1 have seen thousands OF German
dead piled UP in a charge that failed
and theys had had good artillery sup
port. The freemen have lost. say. n
hundred Thousand. But they are brave.
There is a million of them. They are
going to do il with flesh and blood like
the. Fuzzy y-Muzzies against Kitchener
in the Soudan. They have no use for
the machinery of preparedness. They
ing over the bodies of their comrades
pierced by bullets and slashed and
crushed by shells. OF. course. they
would be able to keep their formations
and maintain the team play of COM
pany with company and battalion with
battalion fn the midst OF the shell
bursts and smoke. through mere trained
soldiers could not.
Sarcasm aside, they would all be
Killed as certainly as If they had tried
to climb over 1000 yards Of third rails
llaid as close as house ffooring. IL all
were killed, how could they win the
battle? When the process OF machine
murder was finished. the enemy. with
out the loss OF 10 per cent, would march
over their bodies.
Suppose. however. the million took
the defensive. We will grant that they
know ALI about trench digging, and
how to lay out tactical lines OF trenches
properly. They get this out of primer
books on war, which they read on the
railroad train on the way to the front.
How the Enemy Would Do It.
The million cannot all get into the
front trenches, or even into the reserve
trenches. They are concentrated in
camps to the rear. The $4,000 prepare
to attack by killing or wounding every
man by shell fire or driving the re
mafnder. in the front trenches into
dugout. Ther they put a curtain of fire
back of the front trench, through which
the 100000 freemen will have to rush
Ito the relief of the fellows In front.
They might as well rush through this
as to remain in the second-line trench
es, which would be getting the same
dose as the different line.
Possibly none VIII be left in the Sec
ond line alive to come to the assistance
of the first line. When the barbed wire
is destroyed and the wreckage of the
trench is completed by gun fire the
enemy will march in to the former first
lime, and so on to the second or third
line after the same process of artillery
preparation" Meanwhile. the enemy's
hong range guns. firing fifteen or twen-
ty miles. will be putting shell after
shell into the camps or villages where
the reserves are quartered. They VIII
keep this up night and day without
cessation il they have enough shells.
The freemen in the rear will have to
endure it. They can't strike back with
their rifles, or with clubs or pitchforks
or spit balls.
/ The work of an army with adequate
guns against one without any is as
simple as it would be for a man to
stand on the stage of a theater with
large supply of bombs and throw them
among the audience. killing twenty or
thirty of the orchestra seats first. IL he
chooses. and then, by way Of diversion
so as to heighten the suspense of the
others in the orchestra. toss some up
OF course. the audience might make
rush for the doors. 1t is even possible
that a million freemen might start run
ming down the roads in retreat to escape
from, shell fire, and later be gathered In
as prisoners by the operations of a skilled
enemy with cavalry and guns and motor
machine guns in pursuit. Some one might
start bombarding the man on the stage
with opera glasses or pieces or wrecked
furniture or other bits Of unpreparedness.
Perhaps some lady in box would chuck
her diamond tiara at him. As he was
doing his work in lelsurely safe man.
ner-in the manper of artillery unopposed
by artillery firing at long distance when
lit was safe from any return shells-he
would have time to pick up the tiara and
put it in his pocket as loot. The tiara
represents money. Its powerlessness
against the bombs is the powerlessness
Iof money against preparedness. After
the bomb-thrower had completed his mas
sacre he could make a forced loan to
himself of all the jewelry and money
possessed by the audience. This would
be the spoils of war.
That Illustration is not putting it too
strong. this power of the guns which do
not require masses Of men for manning
One hundred and eighty trained gunners
in the American army look after four
six-inch howitzers. Mobile guns we
should have. and Immediately. They are
the first essential Of modern prepared
ness
Copyright. 1915. by the Wheeler Syndicate. Ise)
-