The Two Maps of Europe, and Some Other Aspects of the Great War

by Hilaire Belloc

Diagram VI. The fort on an elevation at A, and confined within a narrow space, is a target for howitzers placed anywhere behind hills at, say, four miles off—as at B-B, C-C, D-D. It is difficult enough for the fort to find out where the howitzer fires from in any case; furthermore, the howitzer can shift its position anywhere along the lines B-B, C-C, and D-D.

Look, for instance, at Diagram VI.

The fort on an elevation at A, and confined within a narrow space, is a target for howitzers placed anywhere behind hills at, say, four miles off, as at B-B, C-C, D-D. It is difficult enough for the fort to find out where the howitzer fires from in any case, and even when it has spotted this the howitzer can move anywhere along the lines B-B, C-C, or D-D, and shift its position.

Further, be it remembered that under quite modern conditions the accuracy of the howitzer fire against the fort can be checked by aeroplanes circulating above the fort, whereas the fort is a poor starting-place for corresponding aeroplanes to discover the howitzer.

But while the howitzer has this advantage, it has the grave disadvantage of not having anything like the same range as the gun, size for size. For a great many years it has been known that the howitzer has the advantage I have named. But, in spite of that, permanent fortification was built and could stand, for it was impossible to move howitzers of more than a certain small size. The explosives in those small shells did very great damage, but the fortress could, with its very heavy guns, keep the enemy out of range. But when large, and at the same time mobile howitzers were constructed which, though they fired shells of a quarter of a ton and more, could go along almost over any ground and be fired from almost anywhere, and moved at comparatively short notice from one place to another, it was another matter. The howitzer became dangerous to the fortress. When to this was added the new power of the high explosives, it became fatal to the fortress.

To-day the 11-inch howitzer, with a range of about six miles, capable of hiding behind any elevation and not to be discovered by any gun within the fortress, and, further, capable of being moved at a moment’s notice if it is discovered, has the fortress at its mercy. Air reconnaissance directs the fire, and great masses of high explosives can be dropped, without serious danger to the besieger, upon the fortified permanent points, which are unable to elude great shells of high explosive once the range has been found.

Another development of the present war, and somewhat an unexpected one, has been the effect of the machine-gun, and this has depended as much upon the new German way of handling it behind a screen of infantry, which opened to give the machine-gun play, as to any other cause.

The fourth most obvious, and perhaps most striking change is, of course, the use of aircraft, and here one or two points should be noticed which are not always sufficiently emphasized. In the first place, the use of aircraft for scouting has given, upon the whole, more than was expected of it. It prevents the great concentration of troops unknown to the enemy at particular points on a line save in one important exception, which is the movement of troops by night over railways, and, indeed, this large strategical use of railways, especially in night movements, in the present war, is not the least of the novelties which it has discovered. But, on the other hand, aircraft has reintroduced the importance of weather in a campaign, and to some extent the importance of the season. When you doubtfully discovered your enemy’s movements by “feeling” him with cavalry or gathering information from spies and prisoners, it made little difference whether the wind was high or low or whether you were in summer or in winter. But the airman can only work usefully by day, and in bad weather or very strong gales he cannot fly, which means that unexpected attack is to be dreaded more than ever by night, and that for the first time in many centuries the wind has again come to make a difference, as it did against the missile of the bow and arrow.

There are a great many other novel developments which this war has discovered, but these are, I think, the chief. It is advisable not only to discover such novelties, but also the permanent features, which even modern machinery and modern numbers have not changed. Of these you have first the elementary feature of moral.