These figures are not far out of the way. The fact is that, in modern warfare, the actual loss of life for the numbers engaged is correspondingly less than it used to be, while the cost is correspondingly greater. In modern warfare, the loss of money is far greater than the loss of life. It is more the dollar than blood, that is now shed.
In ancient times, when men fought hand to hand in compact form, with short-sword, spear, and battle-axe, they used often to slay half the numbers engaged—easily ten times as many for the numbers engaged as are now slain. There are more than ten million Allies now under arms against more than seven million Germans and Austrians. These numbers have not as yet all been brought face to face with one another on the line of battle, owing to modern methods of warfare; but under old-time methods with old-time arms, they would have been at once brought into collision in two enormous armies. In ancient times, less mobilization could be effected in a year than can now be effected in a month, but when the collision came, the issue of the war was decided on one great field.
If these great European armies were armed with short-swords, spears, and battle-axes, as armies used to be, instead of with modern war weapons and enginery, they would, during the time they have been engaged, very likely have slain a third of their number—certainly ten times as many in proportion to the numbers engaged as have actually been killed in the present war. Even a tenth of their numbers would be a million and a half.
Never in all history have such vast numbers of men been drawn up in line of battle. Never have they been so scientifically armed, and, consequently, never have they, for the numbers engaged, killed so few.
Modern machine-guns and quick-firing guns, with bullets and shrapnel and canister, are so deadly that troops in mass form cannot live for a minute in front of them, but as opposing armies with modern war machinery line up at the present greater tactical distances, and throw out their men in long-extended battle-lines, and spread them over correspondingly wide areas, the fight becomes one largely of gun against gun, engine against engine, with the result that not nearly so many lives are lost as there would be if the fighting were done by hand, and hand to hand, in close order. The German siege guns smashed the forts of Liège and Namur from a distance of nine miles.
As nations are bound to fight, it is far more merciful that they should be armed to the teeth, but it is vastly more expensive. Can we not afford, however, to spend dollars instead of men to kill our enemies?
Therefore, even according to the facts and figures of those two eminent peace-men, I. S. Bloch and Dr. David Starr Jordan, the money loss today is a concern fifteen times more serious to the economic welfare of a nation than is the loss in lives.
It is a very strange paradox indeed that the professional peace-propagandists, who claim to be actuated mainly by considerations of humanity, should advocate disarmament and the inevitable reversion to the old and more deadly arms and methods of warfare, on account of the greater expensiveness of warfare conducted with modern scientific arms and methods.
By doing away with our present highly scientific and very expensive war enginery and fighting methods, the nations would be able, in a war like the present, to kill one another at very much less cost. They would then be able to kill ten times as many in a given time, while the cost would be only a small fraction of the present cost.
It is a matter of solemn certainty that the quick-firing gun is the most beneficent implement of mercy that has ever been invented, and every peace advocate in the world and every lover of his kind should appreciate this fact and use his influence in favor of armaments which serve to make war expensive, and tend both to prevent war, and to save life when war comes.