Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/371

provided it, to meet any army of equal members, equipped as Napoleon s armies were equipped, the difference in power of the modern army would be such that it would almost be able to deal with its enemy as civilized armies provided with fire-arms were at first able to deal with savages possessed only of bows and arrows. The artillery of the days of Napoleon would not be able to act at all, for our modern infantry can fire with effect at a distance greater than could Napoleon s big guns. Our artillery would be able to destroy Napoleon s army before either his artillery or infantry could act against us. Thus an army of 50,000 men of our own time must be reckoned as possessing at least" the resisting power of 100,000 of the days of Napoleon. It is obvious therefore that the re lationship between time, distance, and the resisting power of armies has been greatly affected by the change in the character of weapons, and that calculations as to what a superior army can do in a given time to break up the force of an army opposing it, and to be free to deal with an other army, are greatly modified. There is another element which has largely to be taken into account in our modern battles. The expenditure of ammunition is, from the rapidity of fire, enormous. Even in the days of Napoleon it was extremely difficult, as his own words after the battle of Ligny show, for a victorious army rapidly to turn upon a second force which had not been engaged, because of the time required for filling up the empty ammunition waggons and the men s cartouches. These difficulties under our conditions of warfare are therefore immeasurably increased. Again, in order that an army may nowadays be isolated in the way in which Napoleon in 1805 cut off the army of Mack in Ulm and utterly destroyed it, many conditions have to be secured which were not needed then. The telegraph is a formidable enemy to such an operation. The newspapers are a still greater. When MacMahon in 1870 attempted his disastrous march to the relief of Bazaine in Metz, to the success of which secrecy was es sential, his movements first became known to the Prussian headquarters through French and English journals. Tims the rapid intercommunication between town and town, capital and capital, which is now extended in all directions over Europe to an extent that makes it extremely difficult to completely prevent news of all kinds from leaking out, is an element that cannot be neglected in any strategical calculations. The change in this respect is strikingly shown by the fact that seven weeks elapsed before the news of Trafalgar reached Naples. Furthermore, distant parts of an army may, under certain conditions, be in point of time much more closely connected than they formerly were because of the facilities afforded by railways and telegraphs. There are a variety of other elements less important individually than as all contributing to the same result, which must not be ignored, the facilities afforded for the supply of armies by compressed food and compressed forage, the enormously extended area which caters for the feeding of the European populations and the organization of the commerce of the world rendering all which that area yields rapidly available, and, lastly, the continually improving methods of machine transport by road, bicycles, tricycles, Arc., making it possible to effect rapid movements without forage at all. Furthermore, not only have we to deal with new material conditions, but, as already observed, the armies which have to be led under these new circumstances have themselves been profoundly changed, not only in their armament but in the very spirit, discipline, and organization by which they are held together. What is true of the private, of the sergeant, of the captain, in his relations with superiors, is even truer of the leader of the brigade, of the division, 347 of the army-corps, of the co-operating army. The whole method of the Prussian discipline and organization, as it showed itself in 1870, implied an intelligent independence of action in all ranks that most seriously affected the strategical operations. In fact, in that campaign two very noteworthy points may be observed. From the first battle at Weissenburg up to and including Gravelotte, the peculiar feature of the war was that the German successes at each action Weissenburg, Worth, Spicheren, Colombey-Nouilly, Mars-la-Tour were much more important in their strateg ical than in their tactical aspect, much more important, that is to say, in their general influence on the campaign than in the severity of the losses in men and material inflicted on the enemy. The losses in battle were in fact greater on the side of the victors than on that of the van quished. Yet, secondly, each of these actions, up to but not including Gravelotte, was brought on by the determination of subordinate leaders, and was not designed beforehand either by the king s headquarters or by the headquarters of any one of the three armies. It cannot of course be denied that there was an element of danger in this way of managing a campaign. But the general who attempts to carry out a modern campaign without having realized the nature of this strictly strategical experience is reckoning without his host. Armies now occupy, even when in numbers similar to those of the past, distances vastly greater than was the case in former times. One of two things must happen : either a general must attempt to pre scribe the action of his subordinate leaders with a rigidity which nowadays will continually prevent them from carry ing out what would be his wishes could he be on the spot to advise them; or he will find that he has, as best he may, to make his strategical movements fit into events which have not been previously designed by himself. The Prussian headquarters, realizing fully the dangers involved in the plan which they, in fact yielding to necessity, accepted, found no fault with the generals who had in itiated battles which had proved successful, fearing to do more injury to the spirit of the army than would be com pensated by any other advantage. Nevertheless the notes of warning thrown out in the official history of the war are clear and unmistakable. To us it appears that this condi tion of things is an element in modern war to be foreseen and prepared for, that it represents, not an accident of the 1870 campaign, but an almost inevitable consequence of the present condition of armies. It was their high spirit, their high training, their knowledge of war, which made the German leaders so hard to keep within the leash when they saw the prey before them, and realized that it was a matter of moments whether it could be seized or not. There is nothing like this campaign, in the peculiar mode in which its strategical aspects developed, in all the past history of war. It would appear, therefore, that it tends to mislead a man who is anxious to consider what combinations are open to a general in the field in our day, to assure him that strategy has undergone no change since the days of Napoleon. "No doubt a soldier who had never considered how or why Napoleon triumphed over his opponents, and when and why he failed, would have very little chance of solving aright the problems of a modern campaign. . The handling of armies is, before all things, in the infinite variety of its elements, a dealing with human nature, under certain peculiar conditions, a play of mind against mind, and only by a study of the masters of the game can some of its experiences be gathered. If the changed conditions under which a modern war now takes place have been realized, then all study cf the martial experiences of the past will in its own degree have value. We doubt extremely if any man can fairly appreciate the character of the campaign of Changes s } ] e

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