"Regular troops alone are equal to the exigencies of modern war, as well for defense as offense, and when a substitute is attempted it must prove illusory and ruinous. No militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist a regular force ... the firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be attained by a constant course of discipline and service. I have never yet been witness to a single instance that can justify a different opinion, and it is most earnestly to be wished that the liberties of America may no longer be trusted, in any material degree, to so precarious a dependence."—Washington.
If Washington held it a mistake to rely on untrained, undisciplined men in time of war, who can differ with him today, when not only bravery and discipline are required, but also a knowledge of the complicated enginery of warfare?
It is obvious to any one that ten men armed with the modern magazine shoulder-rifle, with a range of more than two miles, would easily be able to defeat a thousand men—a hundred times their number—armed with slings and bows and arrows, short-swords and spears, as was the army of Hannibal. Hannibal's famous Balearic slingers were able to hurl a slug of lead through a man. But ten riflemen would have time to kill a thousand of them before they could get within sling range. A thousand of the famous English bowmen who fought at Agincourt could all be destroyed by our ten riflemen before they could get within bowshot.
The same thing holds equally true with old short-range and obsolete firearms, as compared with the longer range and more accurate guns of the latest pattern. Ten good marksmen, armed with the latest rifles, could kill a thousand equally skilled marksmen armed with the old muzzle-loaders of the Civil War, before they could get within range. These ten men would each be able to fire with ease a carefully aimed shot every two and a half seconds; the ten men could fire 250 aimed shots a minute. A thousand men, armed with the old muzzle-loaders, would surely have to advance at least a mile and a half after coming within range of the modern rifles before they could get the ten riflemen within range of their muzzle-loaders. Charging forward on the run, it would take them at least ten minutes to cover the mile and a half. In that time the ten riflemen would be able to fire 2,500 carefully-aimed shots. Such is the difference in the potentiality of troops dependent upon suitable arms.
With the modern automatic magazine-rifle a single soldier would be able to defeat a hundred men armed with the old smooth-bore single-shot muzzle-loaders of the Civil War; in fact, he would be able to kill or wound every one of them in an open frontal attack over level ground with his long-range rapid-fire rifle before they could get near enough even to reach him with their short-range muskets. One man operating an automatic machine-gun would be more than a match for a thousand men, armed with the old Civil War musket in an open-view frontal attack, over a distance covered by the range of the machine gun. In fact, with this weapon, firing 600 shots a minute, he could play the gun on their advancing line with the freedom of a hose pipe, and put them hors de combat in a few minutes—certainly, before they could get near enough to reach him with their short-range guns.
Half a dozen automatic machine-guns supported by a battery of half a dozen modern rapid-fire field-guns throwing shrapnel shell at the rate of from thirty to forty a minute, planted on Cemetery Hill, would have been able to defeat Pickett's charge at Gettysburg more quickly than did the entire Army of the Potomac.
It is obvious, therefore, that a nation's war potentiality depends very largely upon its preparedness to fight by machinery, and that a mere citizen soldiery, without the machinery of modern warfare, is as impotent in the face of modern war engines as a swarm of ants in the face of an anteater. It is obvious that, whereas fighting machinery is very expensive, modern warfare is a very costly business, and a business requiring an enormous investment; and also that, whereas a thing is worth most in war which can, for the least cost, produce the best results, machinery becomes much more valuable than life. A single field-piece may be worth more than a hundred men, and at times even more than a thousand men.
In modern warfare, the cost in treasure and machinery is of far greater concern than the loss in blood. Therefore, the efficiency and great cost of all kinds of modern fighting equipment have served to give the great nations pause, and to make them consider well the awful risk before precipitating war. The progress in fighting machinery of every sort has been so rapid, and the number of wars so few, that until now there has been no adequate opportunity to test fighting machinery in actual warfare.