One modern gatling gun will tear a board fence to pieces a mile away in four minutes, and at a range of one mile it will gnaw off a foot-thick pine post in seven minutes.
Don’t enlist till next week.
No wonder the politicians and big business men are “too busy” to get in line on the firing-line—patriotically. And, of course, they do not want their sons and sons-in-law to get up close in front of a belching Gatling gun,—in front of a modern murdering machine—patriotically.
If a battery of modern gatling guns, concealed, using smokeless powder, located out of hearing a mile away or nearer and equipped with a maxim noiseless attachment,—should be trained upon a regiment of men, each gun pouring one thousand bullets per minute into an exposed regiment, the only observable result would be this: the regiment would melt, stricken by an unseen, unheard breath of death.
General William P. Duval, of the United States Military Staff and War College, estimates that the Maxim noiseless attachment for fire-arms “would produce just as much of a revolution in the art of war as did the smokeless powder. Psychologically, this new gun would double the terror inspired by the enemy possessing it.... The fear of the enemy would ... at least be doubled.”
Ordering the working class to go to war with the present fire-arms is like ordering a working man to make a gun, load it, dig his own grave, crawl down into it, and there scream “Hurrah for death!” and then shoot himself.
Perhaps the best way, at least the safest way, to get an accurate idea of the effectiveness of the slaughtering machinery of our day is to read what these guns accomplish in actual operation on the battlefield, pouring showers, streams, storms of lead and steel into the ranks of men. The propaganda of peace is powerfully served by books giving distinct impressions of war as it may be seen (and felt) on the field where modern arms are used. Some specially excellent books for such use are: Human Bullets, by T. Sakurai, a Japanese soldier;[[77]] Port Arthur, A Monster Heroism, by Richard Barry;[[78]] The Red Laugh, by Leonid Andreief;[[79]] The Downfall, by Emile Zola;[[80]] The Future of War, by Jean Bloch.[[81]]
Here following are some paragraphs from a vigorous book of this type, Human Bullets, just noted, passim, which treats of the Russian-Japanese War:
“The dismal horror of it [battle] can best be observed when the actual struggle is over. The shadow of impartial Death visits friend and foe alike. When a shocking massacre is over, countless corpses covered with blood lie flat in the grass and between the stones. What a deep philosophy their cold faces tell! When we saw the dead at Nanshan, we could not help covering our eyes in horror and disgust.... Some were crushed in head and face. Their brains mixed with dust and earth. The intestines were torn out and blood was trickling from them.... Some had photographs of their wives and children in their bosoms, and these pictures were spattered with blood.... After this battle we captured some damaged machine-guns. This fire-arm was most dreaded by us.... It can be made to sprinkle its shots as roads are watered with a hose. It can cover a larger or smaller space, or fire to greater or less distance as the gunner wills.... If one becomes the target for this terrible engine of destruction, three or four shots may go through the same place making a wound very large.... And the sound it makes ... is like a power-loom. It is a sickening horrible sound! The Russians regarded this machine as their best friend. And it certainly did very much as a means of defense. They were wonderfully clever in the use of this machine. They would wait till our men came very near them, four or five ken only, and just as we were ready to shout a triumphant ‘Banzai!’ this dreadful machine would begin to sweep over us the besom of destruction, the result being hills and mounds of dead. After this battle we discovered one soldier ... who had no less than forty-seven shots in his body.... Another soldier of a neighboring regiment received more than seventy shots. These instances prove how destructive is the machine-gun. The surgeons could not locate so many wounds in one body, and they invented a new name [meaning] ‘whole-body-honey-combed-with-gun-wounds.’ ... It was invariably this machine-gun that made us suffer most severely.... The bodies of the brave dead built hill upon hill, their blood made streams in the valley. Shattered bones, torn flesh, flowing blood, were mingled with broken swords and split rifles. What could be more shocking than this scene! We jumped over or stepped on the heaped up corpses and went on holding our noses. What a grief it was to have to tread on the bodies of our heroic dead!... What a horrible sight! Their bodies were piled up two or three or even four deep.... A sad groaning came from the wounded who were buried under the dead. When this gallant assaulting column had pressed upon the enemy’s forts, stepping over their dead comrades’ bodies, the terrible and skilful fire of the machine-guns had killed them all, close by the forts, piling the dead upon the wounded.... After a while the shells ... began to burst briskly above our heads. Percussion balls fell around us and hurled up smoke and blood together. Legs, hands and necks were cut into black fragments and scattered about. I shut my eyes....”
In what unqualified contempt do the masters of the world hold the toilers whom they send into such blood-wasting hells. Shakespeare has expressed the masters’ scorn for the common soldier’s flesh and blood thus: