1910.—"The Air Age and its Military Significance."
1911.—"The Highway of the Air and the Military Engineer."
1913.—"The Balkan Battles." How Bad Roads Lost a War.
1913.—"The Schemers." (A Story.)
1913.—"Songs for Soldiers."
1914.—"Town Planning for Australia."
"Ah! when Death's hand our own warm hand hath ta'en
Down the dark aisles his sceptre rules supreme,
God grant the fighters leave to fight again
And let the dreamers dream!"
—Ogilvie.
PREFACE
These are mighty days.
We stand at the close of a century of dazzling achievement; a century that gave the world railways, steam navigation, electric telegraphs, telephones, gas and electric light, photography, the phonograph, the X-ray, spectrum analysis, anæsthetics, antiseptics, radium, the cinematograph, the automobile, wireless telegraphy, the submarine and the aeroplane!
Yet as that brilliant century closed, the world crashed into a war to preserve that high level of human development from being dragged back to barbarism.
And how the scenes of battle change!
Cities are being smashed and ships are being torpedoed. Thousands of lives go out in a moment. And these tremendous tragedies pass so swiftly that it is risky to write a story round them carrying any touch of prophecy. I, therefore, attempt it, realising that risk. The story is written for the close of the year 1917. Its incidents are built upon the outlook at June, 1915.
It first appeared in an Australian weekly journal, "Construction," in January, 1915, and already some of its early predictions have been realised; as, for instance, the entry of Italy in June, the use of "thermit" shells, and the investigation of "scientific management in Australian work."