The two Hague conferences.
As a direct result of this action delegates appointed by all the leading governments of the world assembled at the Hague in the following year and discussed the possible methods of securing international disarmament. A resolution was adopted affirming the desirability of such action but no definite plan was formulated. A second Hague Conference was held eight years later but it likewise managed to procure no definite promises of disarmament because Germany refused to enter into any such agreement, believing that more could be gained by war than by disarming. So the feverish activity in preparations for war continued until the great world conflict began. In the negotiations which took place at the close of this war it was generally agreed that a reduction of armaments on the part of all countries should begin at the earliest practicable moment, but the disordered state of affairs in several European countries, notably in Russia, delayed any important steps in that direction. This led President Harding, in the summer of 1921, to propose that the chief naval powers should send delegates to a conference at Washington in order that some plan of limiting naval expansion might be prepared.
The conference on naval armaments.
This conference assembled in the autumn of 1921 and at once proceeded to consider a proposal, made on behalf of the United States, that a fixed tonnage of capital ships agreed upon and that this limit should not be exceeded during the next ten years. With some slight amendments the American proposal was ultimately accepted and embodied in an international treaty. The conference also framed agreements for the future limitation of submarine warfare, the prohibition of poison gas in war, and the restriction of fortifications in the Pacific regions. No action was taken towards the limitation of armies.[[279]]
Universal Military Training.—If the leading nations do not agree upon a plan of general disarmament, is it desirable that the United States should adopt a system of universal military training? There is a popular aversion to the maintenance of a large regular army. On the other hand it would be folly to permit the United States to stand unprepared if other nations go on arming themselves as in the years preceding the World War. |The Swiss plan.| The suggestion has been made that we could avoid the necessity of maintaining a large regular army and yet secure the advantages of military preparedness by adopting the plan used in Switzerland where every able-bodied young man is required to undergo a short period of military training. This training would be taken at some convenient time between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one; it would last from three to six months. The claim is made that this training would have educational as well as military value and that it would conduce to the physical upbuilding of American manhood. In opposition to the plan of universal military training it is contended that anything of this sort would involve a great waste of energy, would withdraw large numbers of young men from productive labor, would foster militarism, and would involve enormous expense.
New wars being new methods.
What is Real Preparedness?—Under present-day conditions one must recognize that preparedness for war does not consist in merely training men to march and shoot. No war is ever like any previous war. No amount of human ingenuity or foresight can avail to train men for “the next war”, because nobody knows where, when, or how the next war is going to be fought. The Civil War was fought in the open; it was a war of movement. The World War was fought, for the most part, in trenches; it was a war of positions. In the Civil War, cavalry played an important part; in the World War cavalry had very little share. Artillery was the great factor. For example, it has been estimated that all the artillery ammunition used during three whole days at the battle of Gettysburg would have lasted the American artillery just about thirty minutes in one of the Argonne battles! New weapons and devices are brought forth in every new conflict, and they greatly change the conditions of warfare. The great European struggle utilized the airplane, poison gas, incendiary bombs, gas shells, hand grenades, liquid flame, tanks, wireless telegraphy, wireless telephony, dirigible balloons, submarines, seaplanes, and artillery with a range of over fifty miles—none of these things figured in any previous war.
The “next war”, if it comes.
It has been predicted that the next war will be fought, for the most part, in the air and under the sea; that the entire populations of great cities may be wiped out during a few days by a deluge of poisonous gas-bombs hurled from the sky;[[280]] that science under the pressure of war emergency will discover some form of lethal ray (we have X-rays, light rays, heat rays,—why not rays of a deadlier sort?) which will be shot from the clouds to shrivel and poison human beings by the thousands; that disease germs will be called into service to spread pestilence among the people;—all these things have been soberly predicted as likely to feature the next great conflict if one ever comes.[[281]]
How the progress of science affects warfare.