Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-06

book which gives away every point of lmpor'
lance concerning gas warfare, is treated as
light literature, and the real professional SOL
diers will torture and kill scores of thousands
Of conscripts before they learn, horribly ana
slowly, what he so charmingly tells them IN
his little volume
Just as in the Great War-when in 1914 the
French and British soldiers were quarter Oh
century behindhand with trench WARFARE
and not q military expert in Europe would at
tempt the tank until 1916, although its use
and necessity as solution of the trench BLOCK
ade had been quite lucidly discussed and set
forth by civilians as early as 1903. Brig. zen
Hartley still returns at times to read papers
about gas warfare to the army folk he sup
plemented so effectively during the war though
no supposes they want to take him seri'
ously now. He has made it clear that q coun-
try in which everybody-man, woman anu
child--has specially efficient gas mask handy
may face the next great war with CERTAIN
qualified equanimity, and his anxiety about the
gas discipline of troops trained since 1913 Is
only too manifest in all he says and does III
this connection. Meanwhile, at the Royal Col
lege of Science in London young engineers and
chemists are beguiled away from their studies
in order to learn saluting and messing about
with swords, bayonets and battle axes in
cadet corps.
At present the British Army, which is per-
haps the liveest. most industrious technically,
and according to it's lights. the most nearly
up to date of all the old armies now surviving
in the world is working out methods of fight
ing that are not much more than 20 years be
hind the level of contemporary thought and in
telligence.
Having resisted the tank for u years. having
muffed the tank outrageously in the war, the
British Army is now evidently quite ensaved
by the tank. 1t plays with tanks all day and
dreams of them at night. 1t exhibits them with
childish pride to colonial Premiers and Indian
hos dir1ly, imam ia N 81 mr.
great big land battleshps and transport tanks
and shock tanks. Cavalry is at last at a dis
count, and tie air force practices deadly stunts
and does musical drill at pageants very prettily.
Perhaps a new generation of military
customed in their younger days to driving
motor cars, to the public danger, is responsible
for this change of heart, this sudden glorifica
ton of the cehated tank. But it is to be
hoped for the sake of England and all the world
that these exercises will get beyond the
gravity of expensive amusement for the
British military authorities
Because. quite apart from the airplane gas
attack, which is the really modern mode of
fare. if warfare must have there are
of ways of countering tank rush. This tank
rush of which the British Army seems to be
dreaming now is out of date as those vast
cavalry charges the German Emperor loved TO
rehearse before 1914. There pitfalls, there
are trailing land torpedoes gas. poisoned belts
and zones of sudden flame that would make
tanks mere cooking pots. A committee of
half dozen alert and intelligent specialists of
the type of Mr.. Haldane and Gen. Hartley
men who have given their minds to biology,
chemistry, mechanics and suchke sensible
pursuits instead of mere soldering, could work
out 20 schemes to make tanks impossible in
a month The tank may have been all
very well in 1907 thereabout. Nineteen hun
dred and fourteen was the time for it, 1t
the winning card in the days when Lord
Kitchener turned it down as a mechanical
toy Now the only excuse for thinking of it at
all is that the professional soldiers against
whom the British professionals will be pitted
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