The Washington times., 1934-01-25
1ed ne To |:Higher-U Ups" Now Sought In CWA Racket
True To
Type
Will Next War Leave
People At Home?
By GILBERT SELDES

MOSI newspaper ACdNCAO' l
suppose, feel as I do, that the
war-scare headlines have been
multiplying at a greater rate
in the past six months than
ever before and that news OF
agreement and pacification has
been almost completely lack
ing. The latest important
peaceful utterance came from
Hitler, who said that Ger
many wished to live in peace
with all her neighbors, but the
neighbors haven't exactly taken
the message in a believing
spirit: This may not be all
bad; the last war came when
millions of people believed it
to be not only unnecessary,
but impossible.
Perhaps all this focusing OF
attention on the probability Of
war may head off those con-
flicts which are not, as people
say, inevitable. On the other
hand, the more the subject is
canvaSsed, the better the
armies of the world ought to
be prepared, because every
possible field of operations has
been mentioned and all the
War Colleges have il do is
prepare a strategy for each.
What I would like to know
Is whether the military ex-
perts think the next war is
going to be like the recent
one, or different. The heads
Of the British Army insisted
until we'll into 1915 that the
World War had to be fought
like the Boer War-and that
would have been good enough
If the Germans had agreed,
but the Germans had not been
in the Boer War and had diff
ferent ideas.
War and Revolt
Mr.. Hoffman Nickerson has
recently been discussing war
fare in various periodicals and
some of his conclusions are
arresting. Whether they will
arrest the minds and plans
Of the experts I do not know,
because they are extremely
radical. Mr.. Nickerson begins
correctly with 1893 when ma
tional armies came into ex-
istence, in halting way, put
ting aside the system of hired
mercenaries. He goes on to
an alarming issue: that the use
Of great national armies, con-
scripted from the mass Of the
people. result in domestic revo-
luton. and he cites Russia as
an example. He might have
added Germany.
Now statesmen may be stupid
or vicious, but they do not want
revolution at home; so they will
have to discover some new way
Of making war. The new way,
as we all know, was developed
during the last war, changing
the nature of it during the last
year, although we all kept the
fighting forces at the front. It
was the way of the airplane and
the tank. Both of these instru-
ments have been so perfected
since, that when they appear at
the beginning of the next war,
they may make the whole war
unrecognizable to us who re-
member trenches, mines and
frontal attacks.
Planes, Tanks, Experts
I heard someone say a few
days ago that one fighting plane
Of today was the equivalent Of a
score of the old one%in the
sense that one modern plane
could shoot down a score of 1918
planes without much danger of
being trapped itself. And the
tanks which you see in movies
Of war maneuvers go at terrific
speed and are probably armored
against the best Of the new
small cannon which are the
only effective weapon against
them. These and the gases
which planes can launch and
other mechanical devices are
the arms Of the future.
If understand Mr.. Nickerson
correctly. the use of these
weapons will mean a small
army, virtually an army Of
specially trained men, experts,
not cannon fodder. The tanks
and planes will require an enor-
nous plant at home, but will
not require nearly so large a
service of supply, and will not,
therefore, Withdraw from the
civilian public the amounts of
food and clothing which the last
war demanded. We will, in
way, go back to the old system
of trained soldiers, small ex-
pert standing army, in place of
the unwieldy millions of un-
trained men from civilian life.
It will not be all beer and
skittles for those who remain at
home. There will be conscrip-
ton, probably. of materials and
Of wealth, to an extent. The
civil population in an invaded
country will suffer unnamed
horrors and war will be no pref
tier and no more noble than it
has been before. But we may
not suffer so much from propa-
gands (since fewer men would