The Progress of the Century

by Unknown

The mode in which a modern army on the anticipation of war prepares itself for the field is extraordinarily rapid in point of time as compared with the mode found necessary in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte; and it is this rapidity of mobilization and concentration which strikes the observer as the greatest change or progress of the century in connection with armies. But it is a mere consequence of railroads and telegraphs, and is only the application to military purposes of those increased facilities of locomotion which have played so great a part in the progress of the century. Mobilization is, of course, the union at points fixed beforehand of the men of the reserves who bring the army up to its war footing, and the clothing and equipment of these men, and the distribution to the mobilized regiments of their full materials of war. The cavalry and horse artillery kept upon the frontier are now in a condition of permanent readiness in the principal military countries, as they would be used to cover the mobilization of the remainder of the army. The moment mobilization is accomplished concentration takes place—on the frontier in the case of the principal powers. Near the line of concentration are forts, which play a greater part in the French scheme of defence than they do in the German. The French in the days of their weakness after 1870 both constructed a line of intrenched camps and built a kind of wall of China along the most exposed portion of their eastern frontier; whereas the Germans are prepared to rely upon their field armies, supported by a few immense fortresses, such as those (on their western frontier) of Metz and Strasburg. The French keep in front of their fortresses at Nancy a strong division, which is virtually always on a war footing, and both in France and Germany the frontier corps are at a higher peace strength than those of the interior, and are meant to take the field at once so as to help the cavalry and horse artillery to protect the mobilization and concentration of the remainder, and, if possible, to disturb the mobilization and concentration of the foe. Those who would study modern armies for themselves should visit Nancy and Metz, but should not neglect the Swiss annual manœuvres.

The work of the recruit of Germany and of France, during his two years’ or nearly three years’ training as the case may be, is as hard as any human work; and the populations of the continental countries submit, not on the whole unwillingly, from patriotic motives, to a slavery of which the more fortunate inhabitants of the United Kingdom and of the United States have no conception. The British or the Belgian paid recruit would mutiny if forced to work as works the virtually unpaid and ill-fed recruit of Russia, Germany, Austria, and France. The enormous loss to many industries which is caused by the withdrawal of the men at the age of twenty, just when they are most apt to become skilled workmen, is in the opinion of some Germans compensated for by the habit of discipline and the moral tone of stiffness and endurance which is communicated to the soldier for the rest of his life. This is perhaps more true of the German character than it is of the inhabitants of the other countries; and in France, at least, the soldier training of the entire population is a heavy drawback to industrial and to intellectual life. There are, however, as will be seen in the concluding passage of this article, other considerations to be taken into account, some of which tell the other way.

The one successful exception to the prevailing military system of the day is to be found in Switzerland, which has a very cheap army of the militia type, but one which is, nevertheless, pronounced efficient by the best judges. The mobilization of Switzerland in 1870 was more rapid than that of either Germany or France, and, great as are the strides that both France and Germany have made in rapidity of organization and as regards numbers since 1870, the Swiss also have reorganized their mobilization system since that time, and are still able, at a much less proportional cost, to place in the field at least as large a proportional force as Germany, and this force believed to be efficient, although not largely provided with cavalry.

The greatest change in the battle-fields of the future, as compared with those of a few years ago, will be found in the development and increased strength of the artillery. A modern army, when it takes up a position, has miles of front almost entirely occupied with guns, and the guns have to fire over the infantry, because there is no room for such numbers of guns to be used in any other way. The attacking side (if both, indeed, in one form or another, do not attempt attack) will be chiefly occupied in obtaining positions on which to place its guns, and the repeating-rifle itself, deadly as is its fire, cannot contend at ranges over a thousand yards, unless the riflemen are heavily intrenched, with the improved shrapnel fire of modern guns. The early engagements of a war will, indeed, be engagements of cavalry massed upon the frontier on the second day of mobilization, so rapid will the opening of war in the future be. This cavalry will be accompanied by horse artillery and followed by light infantry, constantly practised in rapid marching in time of peace, or by mounted infantry. But the great battle-fields of the later weeks will be battle-fields, above all, of artillery. The numbers engaged will be so great that the heaviest of all the responsibilities of the generals will be the feeding of their troops during the battles prolonged during several days, which will probably occur, and it is doubtful how far the old generals (often grown unwieldy in time of peace) will be able to stand the daily and nightly strain of war. Jomini has said that when both sides are equally strong in numbers, in courage, and in many other elements of force, the great tragedy of Borodino is the typical battle. Lewal has pointed out that in the battles of the future such equality must be expected: “The battle will begin on the outbreak of war in the operations of the frontier regiments. The great masses as they come to the field will pour into a fight already raging. The battle will be immense and prolonged.” Promotion will probably be rapid among the generals, owing to incompetence and retirement, and certainly among other officers owing to their exposure in these days of smokeless powder, when good shots can pick off officers in a manner unknown in wars which have hitherto occurred. Whether it will be possible to get armies to advance under heavy fire after the officers have been killed is doubtful, when we remember that modern armies consist of the whole population, cowards and brave men alike, and that regimental cohesion is weakened by the sudden infusion of an overwhelming proportion of reserve men at the last moment. On the other hand, in the German army the reserve men will be fewer in the first line than in the French, and the regimental system more available in the field, while on the French side the greater military aptitude of the French race may perhaps be counted upon to remedy the comparative defect. The Prussians make up for the inferior military aptitude of the German people by patriotism, discipline, and the conferring of honor and of civil employment, in after life, on all who do their duty in war. They also provide more effectively than do the French against incapacity in high place. Above all, however, we should attach importance to the wisdom of successive Kings of Prussia in treating the Prussian army as an almost sacred institution, and in constantly working in time of peace to make it and keep it a perfect instrument of war.

The weakest point, relatively speaking, in the French organization, and the strongest point, relatively speaking, in the German, is the officering of the second and third line. The one-year-volunteer system gives the Germans excellent “territorial” officers, while the French have been forced virtually to abolish it as impossible of successful application in a country so jealous of privilege as is modern France. The territorial infantry regiments of France would be excellent for the defence of fortresses, but would for field purposes be inferior to that part of the Prussian landwehr which would remain over after the completion of the reserve corps. The reserve cavalry regiments of France have been created in order to provide promotion and sinecure appointments, and would not produce a cavalry fit for true cavalry service in the field. It would carry us beyond the proper limits of this article to explain how it is that the French could create a field artillery of the second line in time of war which would probably be superior to that of Germany. This forms a set-off against some other inferiority of the French.

The newest point in the development of modern armies is the recent separation in the German army of the cavalry intended for patrol duties from the cavalry intended for fighting in the field. We have had to face the same problem in South Africa, but this condition of our war was peculiar.

It has been said that the history of warfare is the history of the struggle among weapons, and that each change in tactics and even in strategy has come from scientific change affecting weapons. In the century we have seen the change from the smooth-bore to the rifle and from the ordinary to the repeating rifle. We have seen the modifications of artillery, which are beginning to give an application of the quick-firing principle to field artillery, and the use of high explosive shells, likely to affect by their explosion even those who are near the bursting shell and who are not struck by its fragments. Smokeless powder has altered the look of battles and has reduced their noise. It provides excuse for the incompetent. It would be easy, however, to exaggerate the importance of these changes as regards tactics, and still more with regard to strategy, while with tactics we are not here concerned. The great continental military nations have hitherto not allowed themselves to be much affected by the changes in the weapons, and many of the modern fads which are adopted in small armies are condemned by the leaders of these great forces. The British machine guns, for example, like British mounted infantry, are generally regarded on the continent as a fancy of our own. All nations have their military fads, except, perhaps, the severely practical Germans. Russia has its dragoon organization, from which it is receding; America has her dynamite gun; the French have their submarine torpedo-boats. Our machine guns are not thought much more of by most Prussians than the steam-gun of 1844, ridiculed by Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit. If great change was to have been made in the art of war by modern weapons, one would have thought that the first things to disappear would be all vestige of protective armor and the use of cavalry in the field. Yet protective armor has been recently restored to as large a proportion of many armies as used it in the wars of the beginning of the century, and the use of cavalry in the field is defended as still possible by all the highest authorities on the continent. My own opinion on such matters is that of a layman and should be worthless, but it agrees with that of several distinguished military writers. I confess that I doubt whether in future wars between good armies, such as those of France and Germany, it will be possible to employ cavalry on the field of battle, and I go so far as to think that the direct offensive, still believed in by the Prussians, will be found to have become too costly to be possible. Our South African experience is not, however, regarded by continental authorities as conclusive.

The author of Ironclads in Action, Mr. Wilson, who has made a very thorough study of the future of naval war, has pointed out with great force the most striking difficulties of war in the future as caused by the enormous concentration of forces in a particular tract of country. The result of that concentration must be great difficulties about supply, prolonged battles of an indecisive kind leading to exposure, absence of sleep, and to conditions which would form the severest strain for professional men of war, while those who will now be subject to them will be the ordinary population, not very specially warriors, except so far as patriotism may in some cases make up as regards courage and endurance for absence of military tradition. The vast number of wounded will be exposed for longer periods than was the case in many of the earlier wars; but when we remember Leipsic, and Dresden, and the retreat from Moscow, it is again easy to see that the change is rather in the direction of generalization of conditions, which were formerly exceptional, than a change to conditions wholly without precedent.

I have all through this article written of Germany and France as the modern military countries to be taken as a standard in all comparisons. The French have imitated the Germans very closely since the war of 1870. But, although imitation is generally feeble, it must always be borne in mind that the French people have greater military aptitude than the German, and that unless beaten at the beginning of a war they are always in the highest degree formidable. The perfection of system is to be found in Germany, and the peculiarities of the German system are the combination of enlightened patriotism in all its individuality with iron discipline. The system is so strong that unless well managed it would crush out individual responsibility; but the system itself encourages this individual responsibility all down the gradations of the army to the humblest non-commissioned officer and even to the detached private. The universality of promotion by a certain high standard of merit and the absence of jobbery are more thoroughly obtained in Germany than in any other army, and Lord Wolseley’s criticisms on the 1898 manœuvres of our own army, criticisms renewed in 1900, in which he told us that no one had done well in the field, and that this proved that no one could have done his duty during the past year, would be impossible in Germany, and must have shocked military opinion throughout that country.

It is not unusual to assume that the enormous military establishments of the continent of Europe are an almost unmixed evil. But this may perhaps be disputed on two grounds. In some cases, such as that of Italy, the army acts as a kind of rough national university in which the varied life of districts often discordant is fused into a patriotic whole, dialects are forgotten, and a common language learned. In the case of France the new military system is a powerful engine of democracy. There is a French prince (not of the blood) serving at this moment in a squad of which the corporal is a young peasant from the same department. A few years ago I found the Duc de Luynes, who is also Duc de Chaulnes and Duc de Chevreuse, the owner of Dampierre, the personal friend of kings, serving, by his own wish, for, as the eldest son of a widow, he was exempt, as a private of dragoons, and respectfully saluting young officers, some of whom were his own tenants. The modern military system of the continent, in the case of France and Germany at least, may also, I think, be shown to have told in favor of peace. It is possible for us to occasionally demand a war with the greater freedom, because we do not as a rule know what war means. Those of us who have seen something of it with our own eyes are a very small minority. But every inhabitant of France and Germany has the reality of war brought home to him with the knowledge that those of his own kin would have to furnish their tribute of “cannon flesh” (as the French and Germans call it) at the outbreak of any war; and the influence of the whole of the women of both countries is powerfully exerted in consequence upon the side of peace.