Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-09-13
ovERTURNING ALPHABETS
Uses to Which the Letters Are Put by the
War Experts-A Chinese Example

No one has thought 1t worth while to figure
out how many times the letter has been laid
on its SIDE or stood its head since the out
break Of hostilites And yet without the letter
A and its 25 associates, the higher strategy
would be unknown science.
war expert has attained mastery Of his
art when he begins reversing the letters OF the
alphabet. The apprentice In war eNpertship
talks OF salients and interior lines and recur-
rent flank assaults, being, like all beginners,
overfond of the mysteries Of the craft The
journeyman expert simplihes his method and
speaks Of left wings and right wings, refers
famarly to the Niemen and the Bug, and
gives the precise extent Of the battle front in
kilometres. The complete expert, when he
wants to describe the situation between the
Baltic and the Carpathians does so in n single,
flashing sime. He says THE Russian front,
at the moment Of going to press, may be COM
pared 20 a giant letter lying on its side with
the angle pointing west. The apex Of the A
would be at Warsaw. The upper leg would be
the railway to Petrograd. The lower leg would
be the railway to Kiev. The cross-bar would
be the line Of the Niemen and the Bug from
Kovno to Brest- Litovsk. The question which
all neutral strateEists asking today is
whether the Russian armies will fall back only
far the cross-bar, whether they will
be compelled to back out of the A altogether
into the remaining portion of the alphabet.
Time will show"
The odd thing about this higher strategy is
that it can use the letters of the alphabet only
in an unnatural position. Either A is lying on
its SIDE It is standing on it's head, or II has
one of it's legs abnormally prolonged, or there
Is an extension of the cross-bar. The reason
is presumably that the art OF war has not been
brought to perfection. Some day the general
staffs will learn to move their lines forward
in absolute symmetry, and the war experts
will be under no necessity to topple their let
ters over, and the reader, in trying to visualize
the PROSTATE inverted alphabet will no
longer be compelled to make queer motions
with his head and body which draws the at
tention of other people in the train. But it
VIII probably be some time before the perfectly
Spencerian military genius arises. At present
1t is fact that in Russia we find the letter A
lying on its side, in France the letter is stand
ing on its hands and knees, in Gallipol the
letter w has its limbs enormously distended,
and in Italy the letter U rests in what is
obviously an uncomfortable position. with one
leg 10000 feet up in the air around Lake Garda
and the other at sea level near Monfalcone
It will Immediately occur to the reader that
the American expert labors under a very serious
handicap. As long as operations continue on
comparatively simple lines the ordinary Roman
alphabet may be enough But when the situa-
tion grows complicated, when the salients and
second lines of defense multiply. they may
create situation when even r standing on one
leg or X fiat its back will be inadeo,Iate
This is where the Russians with 36 letters in
their alphabet, instead of 26, have a decided
advantage, even If several of their letters are
silent. No French English army could have
conceivably extricated itself from some of the
tight corners out of which the Russians have
emerged with unimpaired morale The Kaiser
too, is fortunate In having alphabet OF his
own with the peculiar advantage that some
letters are so alike as to deceive the most vigi-
liant enemy. Readers of the German news
papers, who, after years OF practice find II hard
TO tell from In the taats-ZeitunR will
really understand why Hndenburg should
have had such an easy time OF It with the
Russians.
But II is in China OF course, that the art of
military description is destined to attain its
fullest development No imaginable strategic
stuauon can arise which the war expert of the
Pelin Daily Delight cannot sum up with a
nash out OF the Chinese alphabet "The posi-
ton OF the Japanese army" he will write,
may De compared to a giant Fo the 2453rd
letter OF our sylabary, tilted backward at an
angle OF 40 degrees. The lattice work at the
top would then be the first army under Mar
shal fuJlyama, the Irish lace effect in the
middle OF the outer diagonal would be the sec
ono ana third armies, with several reserve d.
visions under the supreme command of Prince
shimpo' ana the vermiform appendix at the
lower left-hand corner would be the cavalry
divisions commanded by Count Chusan. New
York Evening Post