It is reported that one of these dogs rescued fifty men on the Somme battlefield in France. The animal known as Filax of Lewanno, is a typical German sheepdog. Such dogs weigh from 50 to 65 pounds and are very powerful, but the Irish terriers and Airedales have also been trained to do effective work, as have the Great Danes and St. Bernards.
CHAPTER XI
WONDERFUL WAR WEAPONS.
The Terrible Rapid-fire Gun—Armored Automobiles and Automobile Artillery—Howitzers—Mounted Forts—Armored Trains—Observation Towers—Wireless Apparatus—The Army Pantry.
It is a long step from the old, smooth bore, flintlock rifle of the Revolutionary days to the modern magazine gun, with its long-pointed cartridges; and it is almost as great a step from the crude iron cannons and smooth bore mortars of the Civil War, with their canister and grape shot, down to the huge, 42 centimeter guns which have boomed their way through France and Belgium.
The patriotic citizen who is unfitted for military service no longer sits at home and aids the armed forces of his country by melting pewter spoons into bullets, or cutting patches of cloth to serve as wads to pack down into the muzzle of guns. The powder horn and the bullet mould are devices of the past. The whole world working in the old-fashioned way could not have in the course of the "war-of-nations" made sufficient bullets to supply the forces for a single week.
Those who must sacrifice in the stress of war now turn their silverware and precious metals into nuggets that may be sold to produce revenue, so that the armed forces may purchase the machine-made cartridges and weapons required to fight the enemy.
Modern warfare has developed the climax in armament and the world has learned more within the last few years about the devilish instruments of destruction which human ingenuity has devised than was known in all the ages before. Since Germany and Austria were the first into action—actually precipitated the great conflict—and as by their years of preparation they were ready for the emergency, it best serves the purposes of those who seek enlightenment on the subject of armaments and weapons to deal with the equipment of the Teuton forces.
Other nations—England, France and the United States in particular—have, in some directions, surpassed the Germans in developing efficient weapons, but in the main, when Germany plunged into the war, she had all around what was conceded to be the best equipment that science and mechanics could supply.