Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-10-19
Democracy Demands
Control of Armament
BY Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

6y MAJ. george F1eLdtng Eliot.
I wonder how often we stop to think
OF the degree to which armament has
affected the conditions of political free
dom of the peoples of history? The
first great advance in organized fighting
power was the invention of the Mace
DOMAIN phalanx, with the core of disci-
plined, steady spearmen, and its strik-
ing wings of armored cavalry. With
that instrument, Alexander conquered
the nations of the world, as they were
known to him, one after another They
had no chance, whether they were the
free city states of Greece or the tyran-
MES of Asia.
The Romans worked out better mill
tary system, with the more maneuver-
able legion as its basis. They con-
quered their world, and ruled it for CEN
turtles. Nothing could stand against
the disciplined, experienced, we'll COM
manded Roman legions Liberty per-
ished from the earth, because liberty
had no means of asserting itself.
In feudal times, the common man for
the most part had no weapons, nor
any means Of getting weapons which
enabled him to deal with the armored
knight. Therefore the knights and
mobiles, who had money enough to
buy suits of plate armour and to hire
and train small bodies of disciplined
men-at-arms, ruled supreme. But there
was an xception-England. In Eng
land grew the yew tree, from which
could be made long bow that would
make carrion Of the noblest knight at
hundred yards or more. In England,
first of all nations, popular liberties
grew and developed. The common man
had weapon that the knight had to
respect. The liberties Of the Swiss were
likewise based on the discovery by that
hardy folk that their solid blocks of
infantry armed with the terrible Swiss
halbert had nothing to fear from the
charge Of armored chivalry.
The invention of gun powder really
sounded the kneu of the feudal system.
Its first application to war was in the
cannon and the effect of the develop
ment OF artillery was the destruction Of
the power of the mobiles by the kings.
This was because only a king or a very
great noble could have money enough
to set up foundry and produce cannon.
The strength Of the mobiles lay in their
castles, almost inpregnable to the weap-
ons of the Middle Ages; the cannon
afforded a means by which the royal
armies could destroy the castles without
undue waste Of time.
So the cannon wiped out the mobiles,
and conferred all power in the kings.
Some really shocking tyrannies on a
large scale resulted; England, for exam
pie. was never so despotically ruled as
under Henry VIII. But after the can
non came the arquebus and then the
musket-hand firearms which any one
could use, and which could be produced
at reasonable cost. Popular revolution
on large scale became possible. In
Britain 1t swept away the Stuarts and
their notions OF the divine rights OF
kings; in France 1t came more slowly
but more terribly in the end. In Amer
lea new nation was born, brought into
being by armed citizens revolving
against despotic rule.
The industrial revolution OF the 18th
century brought with it the railway and
the steamship, the means OF assembling
and supplying larger armies than be-
fore; these were armies Of rihemen, with
a certain number of cannon and q GER
tain number of horsemen. There was a
certain equilibrium in this system; in
the end 1t was numbers Of rifemen
which counted. and gradually every
European state mustered all its cithenry
into the army, active or reserve. There
was no disparity Of armament between
government and the people. The SOL
diers advantage over the armed citizen
was little more than the advantage OF
discipline and most citizens, in Eu-
rope at least, had had some sort Of
military training. Popular government
made enormous strides in the 10th CEN
fury. There was no way for tyrants
to hold 1t in check.
But as the 10th century drew to its
close, these conditions began to change
Mechanical weapons of greater and
greater cost and completely began to
appear. The war Of 1sl4-l918 brought
US the tank and the airplane to add to
the quick firing field gun and the ma
chine gun. When that war ended, the
disparity in armament between govern
ment and citizen was enormous and
apparently unbridgeable. Applying this
fact to their particular problems, the
Germans built up war machine with
which they hoped to overthrow the un-
ready democracies Of the world, and
they all but succeeded. These nations
which they conquered were wholly I'M
able to revolt against them successfully,
and only the fortunate fact of Britain's
insular position and Russia's vast geo.
graphical eXpanse gave time for the
endangered nations to catch up with
German advantage, and for America
to arm and come to their aid.
Now we face new problem in which,
obviously, the use of these new and
terrible weapons must be surrounded by
adequate safeguards. Within nations of
strong constitutional traditions, as in
Britain and America, the citizen is
accustomed to maintaining, by law and
custom, the supremacy of the civil over
the military power. But it must like
wise be recognized that such free ma
lions, with the restraints on armament
which are essential to the preservation
of democracy, cannot afford to allow