Paris

by Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

THE EVOLUTION OF “NEW MODEL” ARMIES

“Rome was not built in a day”—nor will be the armies of the “new model,” though, since the history of the material world is a tale of the replacement of the human muscles by machines, the end is inevitable. Civil developments in mechanical science have repeatedly and continuously influenced and changed the methods of warfare. The longbows of mediæval England had to give way to the musket, the “wooden walls” of Nelson’s time yielded to the ironclad, the sailing ship was replaced by the steamship. But natural conservatism and financial stringency make rapid changes in peace-time unlikely.

Thus the first stage will probably be to provide infantry with mechanical legs to carry them to the battlefield, to replace horse-drawn artillery with motor-drawn, or motor-borne guns, and to develop the tank arm to the proportion that its tactical importance as the heir of cavalry demands. With their transport no longer tied to roads and railways, such armies could well make advances of a hundred miles in the day.

A longer period must elapse before tanks swallow the older arms completely, though the absorption of these Jonahs will be hastened if the military leaders of the nations realize that the gas-weapon has come to stay, notwithstanding the paper decrees of Leagues and Conferences.

To realize this we have only to ask the question: How can the respective arms protect themselves against gas? Aircraft, by rising above it; tanks, by being air-tight and producing their own oxygen inside; infantry, cavalry, artillery, by the use of some form of respirator. A respirator is only proof against known kinds of gas; it cannot be worn for long without incapacitating its wearer from active exertion; it cannot protect the whole body, unless it be developed into a complete diver’s suit, in which movement would be almost impossible. If a man cannot move freely, he cannot fight. If a horse cannot move, what use is his rider? If the artillery-man cannot serve the gun freely and the gun is immovable, field artillery is useless. Therefore, if gas becomes a standard weapon, we are left with the tank and the aeroplane as the sole effective arms for offensive action. Only as the static defenders of the fortified bases—the land-ports—of tanks and aircraft will there be a future for infantry and artillery, the former armed with super-heavy armour-piercing machine-guns, and the latter with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.

How long even tanks will persist is a moot point. To hit so small and rapidly moving a target is not easy for the aeroplane, and if it come low, the tank can hit back. In the next lap of the immemorial race between the means of offence and protection, mobility is on the side of the aeroplane, but gravity on that of the tank—in increasing the degree of armour.

Again, though gas is the weapon which will sign the death-warrant of the traditional arms, and by which the new arms will attack the enemy nation, its very triumph will cause one more revolution of the eternal cycle.

Since both are gas-proof, the armour-piercing projectile will come back into its own for air and tank battles. Both machines also are self-contained fighting organisms, combining hitting power, mobility and protection. What present type of weapon already possesses this combination? The warship.

Thus the tactics of tank versus tank will conform to those of naval war, while overhead Tennyson’s “Airy navies grappling in the central blue” find literal and not only figurative fulfilment.

Although overland warfare will ultimately assume a close resemblance to sea fighting, the novelists’ dream of land “dreadnoughts” is unlikely of fruition. The obstacles met with on land, the benefit of using an already cleared and graduated path, such as road systems provide through and over these obstacles, the load-capacity and width of bridges, will limit the size of the landships. Even the amphibious tank does not solve the problem of getting out of a river with steep banks.

Thus a concentrated essence of fighting power, rather than bulk, will be the aim of the tank designers of the future, just as the organizers of armies will pin their faith on quality instead of quantity, turning for inspiration to Alexander Xenophon and Gustavus Adolphus in place of Clausewitz. Not “how large,” but “how good” will be the standard of to-morrow.

To sum up our deductions—The land “punch” of the future will be delivered by fleets of tanks, their communications, maintained by cross-country and air vehicles, offering no fixed and vulnerable target for an enemy blow, either on land or from the air. These quick-moving and quick-hitting forces will advance by rapid bounds into the enemy country to strike at its vitals, establishing behind them, as they progress, a chain of fortified bases, garrisoned by heavy artillery and land marines—late infantry. A proportion of land marines might also be carried in this tank fleet to be used as “landing parties” to clear fortifications and hill defences under cover of the fire from the tank fleet.

Speed, on land as in the air, will dominate the next war, transforming the battlefields of the future from squalid trench labyrinths into arenas where surprise and manœuvre will reign again, restored to life and emerging from the mausoleums of mud built by Clausewitz and his successors.