Evening star., 1939-01-11


into the world-had schemed; GRATED
take over % ieadership % Of Il the i Whole world. d
Aided by wars strikes, revolutions and
mutinlss' nut. ts financed farst by one side and
trine OF union Of the common men Of
the world s, across the planet; His central
Rosers, Thirp, Reediy' Beiiaeourt Nor
vel-had plans ready for moving in
when the time was ripe Now the
worlds rottlng process was speeding up.
sporadic campaigns betWeen the
and settling down along a front that
split the world in two.
BY H. G. WELLS.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The theological War.
With futile sense of complete
reinsurance, the official mind found
itself at least definitely at war again
by the fifth decade of the Goth CEN
tury. There were actual declara-
tions of war quite like old times.
"Who said war was over?" the old
order demanded, scared but glad
Now we know where we are"
they said, when as matter of fact
they knew less than ever where they
were. The city crowds cheered, the
armies went tanking forward, the
expensive navies, according to the
best naval traditions, hid from each
other in remote inlets behind power
full booms, the bulletins lied even
when there was no object in their
lying, the planes roared overhead,
the bombs crashed, the cities burst,
people ran this way and that,
clapped on silly gas masks and
crowded out inadequate shelters
until they were squashed or smashed
or suffocated or starved, many mil
lions of living, feeling, human beings
were converted into red pulps and
messes and the great war of the
Ideologies moved on for time, ac-
cording to the best precedents, to
no perceptible objective whatever
For the first six or seven months
there was tornado of battle. Every
where one was at the front, so to
speak, and the entire planet prac-
tlcally was under fire. The tale Of
destruction is as monstrous as it is
frightful; it baffled piety, it Knocked
heroics, philosophy refuses to enter
tain it. its records remain unread.
Great accumulations of men and
war material came into collision and
remained in conflict for days and
weeks with much slaughter and de-
structlon, and the contemporary his
torlan, trying, at any cost to the
truth, to keep up his continuity with
the past, called them battles" and
even explained what advantages
were gained by them and how, in a
technical sense, they decided this
or that.
Followed Different Course.
The land was ebbed before the
Irst year was out. In the previous
World War, there had been a vast
accumulation of material wealth to
draw upon, and from beginning to
end the supply of men and material
increased, to the universal amaze
hent, as though there was no limit
to human resources. But the way
OF the ideologies followed quite
q different course. It began almost
at maximum of equipment, and
with populations incapable of much
further effort and sacrifice. Arama-
ment deteriorated very rapidly at
last; instead of the crescendo. of
l9l4-18, there was a more and more
preceptible diminuendo. Essential
substances were giving out. Make
shift came into its own in the fight
Ing line and famine spread behind
1t. And then came mutiny. The men
OF the dwindling air forces, urged
to 60 up in less and less trustworthy
machines, and the people in the
overstralned munition factories, in
creasingly dangerous as skilled
workers became rarer and material
degenerated, passed from reluctance
to sabotage and fiat refusal.
The European Authoritarian"
Warshlps so far overcome the battle
shyness Of their crews as to put to
sea IN order to sweep the Atlantic:
and their allies, the japanese, got
across the Pacific to shell and
partially destroy San Francisco,
cover a futile landing at Panama
and another at Valparaiso, round
Cape Horn, effect a sort of junction
with the authoritarians after the
destruction of Gibraltar, and fight
that confused series of heroic rear
guard engagements known as the
battle of the South Atlantic. For
nearly a week the battleships of
the world, those magnificent pieces
OF lethal engineering, careered about
the seas, greatly afflicted by aero
planes and submarines, and a bent
and battered remnant got back to
shelter again. And there it became
manifest to the Mortified captains
that that was where their men in
tended to remain until the war was
over.
Naval strategy became more and
more business of concealing this
reality from the opposite side. That
last naval war indeed much more
like panis in contentious
mothers meeting with wasps'
nest upset and mice on the floor,
than it was to any of the set
naval conflicts of the past. 1t was
monstrous and tragic but also it
was intensely ridiculous. After the
surviving warships had been tucked
away again out of harms way, the
residue of admirals on both sides
went ashore, launched into author
ship, and after prolonged cam
paign, produced the curves of that
truncated conflict to fully demon
strated victories. Everybody who had
not been drowned or blown out of
the water and had escaped to tell
the tale, discovered that he and
his side had won. The more these
gallant survivors wrote, the COM
pleter their victories became. There
are people who still find an interest
in these highly technical discus
sions.
The Group Takes Sides.
Under the stresses of this war
Of the Ideologies the quality of the
nat nf radieal orpopizationc tho