Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights

by Kelly Miller

Warfare such as carried on in the Great World War is so different from that of any other of the great wars which the world has seen, that it might be described as a method of fighting distinctively unique. Undoubtedly, more ancient methods, and even ancient weapons, have been employed than were used in any of the wars which have changed, from time to time, the boundary lines of nations. The fighting of mass against mass has been practically obliterated, and modern evolutions where the plan is man to man have developed a mode of fighting where terrible execution has resulted.

Undoubtedly this means of fighting has developed the personal initiative of the soldiers, and the modern fighting machine of the nations is of a high standard, which, together with death-dealing weapons, has resulted in terrible havoc. Massed movements, such as carried on in the War of the Rebellion, have been practically done away with, and although there have been long and costly sieges, they have been carried on by tedious trench fighting, airships, hand grenades, and massive shells fired from guns of great caliber, and with a range which is really marvellous.

Shells are fired, shrapnel in some cases, explosive shells in others, which are timed to the second, so that when fired from guns many miles from the objective point, they explode at a measured distance from the earth. They are exploded within a gauged distance of the target, and the execution is done over a measured area. On the shells are indicators. Within the shrapnel shells are hundreds of small shot. As the shell explodes the shots are scattered over the enemy, and death and destruction are unavoidable.

With bomb shells, fired from guns of the largest caliber, there are also indicators which are timed to the second. The range and time of explosion previously figured out by officers, the shell explodes where it is intended that it shall, and the work of the great explosive is done with resultant damage.

WAR'S MANY DEVELOPMENTS.

The war has developed many of the new methods of fighting and revived many of the old means of warfare. Cavalry has not been as active in the relation in the great war as in any of the wars of comparatively recent date, because of the extensive trench warfare which has formed so much of the fighting plan. Fighting has been a question of trench raids, and barrage fire, followed by the infantry charge through shell holes. The impression brought home to the modern observer is that the older recognized methods of warfare are gone for good.

The thing which war changed in the work of the cavalryman is in the nature of an addition, rather than a subtraction from his duties and the training he must have. The day of cavalry—as cavalry and nothing else—has passed. For today the cavalryman must be familiar not only with the sword, lance and revolver, but with the rifle as well. It has been demonstrated that such long periods of trench warfare may develop that it becomes necessary for him to dismount and make himself valuable in the scheme of military economy by fighting as infantry until such time as the enemy line is broken and he can again take to his horse and the work of harrying the retreating foe.

The war has been full of surprising results as regards cavalry. It was popularly supposed that in facing such terrible modern weapons as the repeating rifle of long range, the machine gun and the automatic field pieces which have become so well known as the French "75s," any body of cavalry which attempted to charge the enemy would be annihilated.

CAVALRY'S SUCCESSFUL CHARGES.

Yet all through the early stages of the war one reads of desperate, and, what is more to the point, successful charges made by British cavalry against batteries of German field pieces. There was one instance in France, just back of the Belgian frontier, where a charge of British lancers against a German battery, which had a commanding position, saved the day for a greatly-outnumbered allied detachment, which was conducting that most difficult of all maneuvers, a rear guard action, covering the retreat of the body of the army. The charge of the lancers took the Germans so by surprise, and was executed with such speed, that despite the heavy fire they poured into the advancing horsemen the latter were at work among them with spear and saber before reinforcements could be brought up. Then the cavalry, dismounting and unslinging their carbines, defended the position with such tenacity that the German advance was delayed several hours, sufficient for the rest of the allied forces to make good its withdrawal and the consolidation of the new lines chosen for defense.