The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-12-21
Next War Te.Be--.
Fought With'Gas
And Planes, Said
Noted British Historian and
Strategist Gives View
Z of Possibilities
b. w. C. OUISENBERRY
United Press Staff Correspondent

b. w. C. OUISENBERRY
United Press Staff Correspondent
LONDON, Dec. 2l. (UP)-
Fearful of war, all Europe to-
day is wondering. what the
next war will be like"
Capt. B. H. Liddell Hart, one
Of the worlds foremost military
historians and strategists, says
nearly everyone has the wrong
| idea about it. The next war,
he believes. will be tame COM
pared with the last.
armies will be paralyzed al
most before they have begun to
mobilize. If they did succeed
in meeting, they would have to
entrench quickly as the alterna-
tive to suicide. Attack by land
forces will be so difficult that
it will become almost impossible.
Warning nations will either be
made helpless at the outset, or
stalematcd so promptly that 1t
will be useless to pursue the war.
LAST WAR TAUGHT LITTLE
Europe's general staffs, ac-
cording to Capt. Liddell Hart,
have learned comparatively little
from the last var. They still be-
lieve in the effectiveness of mass
movements and think the larger
their armies are, the more pow
erful will they be. This mere
tonnage of man power in the |
British starateglst'S opinion, Will
avail European nations little IN
the next war.
THE fallaty of the theory
was exposed generation ago
by the mechanical progress which
made one man. sitting behind a
machine-gun, the superior of a
hundred, or even a thousand, who
were advancing against him on
foot with rifle and bayonet' he
says. :,
/ "Machine-guns Of every kind
have multiplied everywhere since
the last war, increasing the al
ready overwhelming advantage
of defensive forces on land. In
contrast, artillery has decreased
in proportion. That perhaps
matters little, because at its ut
most the larger gun was an IN
efficient and uneconomlc ma
chine-gun destroyer.
GAS TO PARALYZE FOE
advancing armies will be
foredoomed to failure. Gas, par
ticularly mustard-gas, will in
crease the helplessness of large
armies. Their very size will en-
danger them more than the foe.
The larger they are, the easier
they will be to paralyze by air
attack on their assembly posi-
tions and routes.
"Thus it is doubtful whether
the armies would ever come to
the point of sighting each other;
whether they would come within
reach of the battlefield"
Sos More likely, believes Liddell
Hart. air forces will strike in
the first hour Of the next war
before mobilization has begun.
The power to make war will be
crippled at its source. The air
attacks will not be directed at
the civilian population, he says,
but at "basic" targets-muni-
lions factories, power centers,
ports and airdromes.
LARGEST AIR FORCE
"The nation with the largest
! air force will have an evident ad-
vantage" he adds. "Yet the
value of mere quantity is apt to
be over-estimated in the air as
on land. Technical efficiency
Will count for more than num-
bers.
The intricate mobilization ma
chinery Of a modern chloride
world, explains Liddell Hart, to
throw out of gear. The centra-
lization Of water, light, heat and
power supplies all more disloca-
tipn easier and paralysis more
certain.