Evening star., 1935-10-27

innate clash OF the great economic
empires?
After all, 1t was fact that a few
imperialist nations had grabbed two
thirds of the worlds lands and
brought a thousand million human
beings under their sway: that these
great empires have an economic basis
which is imperiled in machine civil
ization where productive power in
creases while free markets contract
that any of these empires, stripped OF
colonies and possessions, would fall to
minor rank among the nations, and
might disappear; and that the modern
world, for all its achievements in
science and machine technique and
organization. remains treasure house
open to the looter once the armed
guards are withdrawn or overpowered.
Now every nation with something
to lose. or wiz, in dangerous world
is getting ready-if not to fight an
other war. at least to build up the
type Of war machine and organiza-
ton which the next war will demand
if and when it comes.
The spiral Of activity created is SC
big that it accounts for a substantial
amount of the current economic re-
covery (in Germany, for so much OF
it that if rearming stopped the
national economy would collapse
ArmorieS, in fact, are full of junk
legacies of the last war in both techni-
cal and tactical ideas terms, and il
has become clear that any big state
caught in the next war, and still
thinking and acting in terms of the
last war, will follow the mastodon into
oblivion.
When it was close to us, that last
war seemed a marvel of scientific in
genuity. 1t certainly called for colos.
sal organization to conduct operations
with any semblance of orderlines.
when score of nations and all tht
great powers were in the fight. Dur.
ing four years of the war more thar
100000 men were killed and died II
service. Statisticians have demon.
Strated by comparative tables that
measuring by the numbers of com.
batants engaged, many wars fought II
the past with primitive guns, or with
swords, axes, clubs, spears and arrows
were more destructive of life Yet the
cold truth about the great war is thai
1t ranks as one of the clumSiest, dulles
and most inefficient wars ever waged
Germans Didn't See Far Enough.
If one Of the two great groups hae
started the war with the weapons anc
tactics in use at the end, that group
would have finished the war before
the end of 1914. Substantially, giver
will, money, imagination and purpose
1t could have been done. But ever
the Germans, the most realistic anc
direct-minded preparers, did not see
far or clearly enough, and so were
doomed, like all the other belligerents
to learn as they went along.
myself was speck, molecule, ir
the cataclysm. But I was one oi
those learners from August, 1914, until
| the end. The first bombs I heavec
over trench bays were tin jam pot'
crammed with explosive. The first
gas mask wore was woolen sleeping
cap soaked in weak acid. The first
tank drove had plates that cracked
under machine-gun fire and sent 9
squirt of hot splinters against the eyes
of gunners working with faces close
to the tank skin, so that the early
tank warriors had to borrow from the
Crusades and adopt a chain-mai
visor. The bombs and masks of 1918
however, could have been developed
by a years intensive work in 1918
The tanks I took into the Rhine zone
at the wars end were technically
possible in 1911 and 1912.
The thought is just personal in
trusion. But it is the essence of the
arms race. The race is no longer one
for bigness alone. A parallel race il
under way in weapons, machines, in
ventions, ideas, tactics, strategy.
Britain, controlling an empire con.
tanning a fourth of the worlds in
habitants and needing for its preser-
vation the freedom of 10000 miles oi
seaways and the integrity of the
mother Seagirt isle, has decided or
early rebuilding of a large part oi
her giant sea feet. She is not only
enlarging her air fleet by 1000 new
type planes, with 22.50o more pilots
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