The final paradox of peace: How automated warfare could forge European unity

“ Such energies of hostility are not confined to the elements. They exist in human communities. They underlie the political conditions of the nations, and their outbreak is at times as sudden and unlooked-for as that of the winds and waves. Such was the state of political affairs in Europe at the date mentioned, apparently calm and restful, while below the surface hostile forces which had long been fomenting unseen were ready to burst forth and whelm the world. ”

“ Only great and far-reaching causes could have brought about such a catastrophe. All Europe appeared to be sitting, unknowingly or knowingly, upon a powder barrel which only needed some inconsequent hand to apply the match. It seems incredible that the mere pulling of a trigger by a Servian student and the slaughter of an archduke in the Bosnian capital could in a month’s time have plunged all Europe into war. From small causes great events may rise. ”

“ On the morning of the 26th they rose to learn that a great war had begun, a conflict the possible width and depth of which no man was yet able to foresee; and as day after day passed on, each day some new nation springing into the terrible arena until practically the whole of Europe was in arms and the Armageddon seemed at hand, the world stood amazed and astounded, wondering what hand had loosed so vast a catastrophe, what deep and secret causes lay below the ostensible causes of the war. ”

“ STRENGTH AND RESOURCES OF THE WARRING POWERS Old and New Methods in War—Costs of Modern Warfare—Nature of National Resources—British and American Military Systems—Naval Strength—Resources of Austria-Hungary—Resources of Germany—Resources of Russia—Resources of France—Resources of Great Britain—Servia and Belgium
Within the whole history of mankind the nations of the earth had never been so thoroughly equipped for the art of warfare as they were in 1914. While the arts of construction have enormously developed, those of destruction have fully kept pace with them ”

“ When the second contingent sailed away from Canada to take its place with the allies on the battlefields of Europe, it was accompanied by a battery of the most complete and efficient armored motor car rapid-fire machine guns ever devised. Indeed, they are, so far as is known, the first motor car machine guns in the ranks of the allies in any way comparing in point of up-to-dateness and efficiency with those now being employed by the German army. For up till recently Germany was the only power which had given any attention to armored motor car machine guns. ”

“ The possibility of being able to start a ruthless U-boat warfare hung like a Damocles' sword over the heads of our adversaries, and would perhaps be a more effectual means of ending the war than the reckless use of the U-boat as a weapon of war, carrying with it the danger of an attack by the neutrals. If the effect expected by Germany was not realised, which was within the bounds of possibility, we must be prepared to see the desire for war in the enemy greatly intensified. However that may be, the vanishing of the desire for peace must be accepted as an established fact. ”

“ In the presence of the drones, there were no more natural enmities. For the drones were the Enemy. Their coming meant that all life was kindred; deep in the heritage of every people was the almost instinctive knowledge that, if the drones were not checked as tradition decreed, their blind automatic propagation would end by sweeping every living thing from the face of the Earth. ”

“ As a matter of fact one nation had been for nearly half a century the pivot upon which European hopes and fears have turned in the matter of peace and war, of military and naval preparation, of diplomatic interchange. During this period Germany rose to a foremost place amongst the nations of Europe, to the first place in strength of military power and organized fighting force, to the second place in naval strength and commercial progress. The growth itself was a legitimate one in the main ”

“ The wealth of the German empire has grown in a far greater area than its population, it having developed into the most active manufacturing country in Europe. Agriculture has similarly advanced, and one of its chief products, that of the sugar beet, has enormously increased, beet-root sugar being among its chief industrial yields. In addition, Germany has grown to be one of the most active commercial nations of the earth. ”

“ Russia improved her military position after the Japanese was as she was bound to do; Germany appeared to set the pace upon sea and land with an aggressive diplomacy in Morocco and in China, at Paris and at St. Petersburg, which was bound to cause trouble and to promote what is commonly called militarism. The vast ambitions and persistent policy of the German ruler and his people, the unsatisfied characteristics of German diplomacy, the militant ideals and military preparations and naval expansion of Germany between 1900 and 1914 became the dominant consideration in the chancelleries of Europe. ”

“ In all the larger nations of Europe except Great Britain the whole able-bodied male population are now obliged to spend several years in the army, and to be ready at a moment’s notice to drop all the avocations of peace and march to the front, ready to risk their lives in their country’s service or at the command of the autocrat under whom they live. ”

“ Great Britain is the chief one in Europe, while in America the United States is a notable example of a nation that has adopted the opposite policy, that of keeping its population at peaceful labor, steadily adding to its resources, during the whole time in which peace prevails, and trusting to the courage and mental resources of its citizens to teach them quickly the art of fighting when, if ever, the occasion shall arrive. ”

“ Britain and the United States, the only two of the greater nations that have adopted the policy here considered, are not trusting completely to chance. Each of them has a body of regular troops, fitted for police duty in time of peace and for field duty in time of war, and serving as a nucleus fitted to give a degree of coherence to raw militia when the sword is drawn. Subsidiary to these are bodies of volunteer troops, training as a recreation rather than as an occupation, yet constituting a valuable auxiliary to the regular forces. ”

“ What pride of power, what lust of ambition, what desire of imperial dominion cast the armed hosts of the nations into the field of conflict, on which multitudes of innocent victims were to be sacrificed to the insatiate hunger for blood of the modern Moloch? ”

“ But among all the world has so far known there has been none so stupendous in character, so portentous in purpose, so vast in fighting multitudes, so terrible in bloodshed, as the one with which we are here concerned, the lurid meeting of the nations on the blood-stained fields of battle which broke upon the quiet of the world with startling suddenness in the summer of 1914. Launched on the borders of little Servia, it soon had the continent for its field of action, and all but one of the greater nations of Europe for its participants. ”

“ The horror of what has occurred in Europe, which has drawn into the maelstrom of war large parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia, and even America, is altogether too great to permit us to rest supine without endeavoring to prevent its repetition. ”

“ When war broke out on August 1, 1914, between the five greater Powers of Europe—Great Britain, Russia and France, on the one side and Germany and Austria on the other—the issue was at once brought home to about 450 millions of people in America, Asia and Africa who were connected with these nations by ties of allegiance or government, by racial association, or historic conquest. Of these peoples and lands by far the greater proportion were in the British Empire and included India, Burmah, South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller states and countries. ”

“ GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR The Growth of German Importance—German Militarism—Great Britain’s Peace Efforts—Germany’s Naval Program—German Ambitions—Preparation for War—Effect on the Empire
The influence of the European War permeated everything from and through the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The whole world, civilized and uncivilized, was drawn into this whirlpool of disaster—the majority of the population of the earth was actually at war. ”

“ With the feeling that a dead soldier is utterly useless, and a wounded one often worse than useless, as constituting an impediment, every means of saving life is utilized. Soldiers now fight miles apart. Prostrate, hidden, taking advantage of every opportunity of protection, every natural advantage or artificial device, vast quantities of ammunition are wasted on the empty air, every ball that finds its quarry in human flesh being mayhap but one in hundreds that go astray. In the old-time wars actual hand-to-hand fighting took place. ”

“ For years he had swept Europe with his armies, rending the nations into fragments, and winning world-famous victories with weapons that no one would look for today except in a military museum, weapons antiquated beyond all possible utility on a modern field of battle.
ANCIENT AND MODERN WEAPONS
Every fresh modern war has been fought with new weapons, and during the past century there have been countless inventions for the carrying on of warfare in a more destructive manner, apparently on the philanthropic theory that war should be made so terrible that it must quickly pass away. ”

“ To-day, however, in Germany the most enthusiastic advocates of the U-boat warfare are beginning to see that this means to victory will not be decisive, and I trust that the mistaken idea that England within a few months will be forced to sue for peace will lose ground in Berlin too. Nothing is more dangerous in politics than to believe the things one wishes to believe; nothing is more fatal than the principle not to wish to see the truth and to fall a prey to Utopian illusions from which sooner or later a terrible awakening will follow. ”

“ For seconds at a time, the walking machine poised motionless, one or more of its clawed limbs groping for footholds. As it clambered painfully upward, it was hopelessly exposed to attack if it should be sighted from the air.
Dworn, the beetle told himself savagely, you are not only a ghost, you are an insane ghost. Only a madman would have undertaken such a journey.
The cabin heeled wildly as the machine grappled a ledge and, its engine panting at full throttle, levered itself upward a few more feet. ”

“ Even as the shell hit the ground close to the ranked drone aircraft, motors had begun to pulse and snarl all along the farflung line. The desert began to spew forth attackers. A motley horde of metal things, they darted, stalked, and lumbered from their lurking-places, and as they advanced to the assault the firing commenced in earnest, became a staccato thunder that blanketed but failed to drown out the beginning alarm-wail of a huge mechanical voice from the fortress of the drones. ”

“ Dworn knew that if his machine failed him in battle he would die. For men fought each other viciously, with no bond of brotherhood, in this—
World Of The Drone by Robert Abernathy
The beetle woke from a dreamless sleep, yawned, stretched cramped limbs and smiled to himself. In the west the sunset's last glow faded. Stars sprang out in the clear desert sky, dimmed only by the white moon that rose full and brilliant above the eastern horizon. ”

“ He said slowly, "I see what you mean, It's only big enough for one-way traffic—and the drones evidently have some system of remote control, so that outbound expeditions aren't using it at the same time as returning ones...."
"So, if we wait till some of the wingless ones enter from this end, and hurry through the tunnel close behind them—" Qanya left the sentence uncompleted. Dworn knew she could imagine as well as he what would happen if they failed to time it right, and met a drone column coming from the opposite direction. ”

“ A fighter drone came roaring out one of the runaways gathering speed and beginning to lift. Dworn followed it with his eyes, feeling sweat spring out on his forehead, repeating under his breath without conscious awareness of what he was saying: "Stop him, stop him—"
Then the enemy craft spun round in the air, belching smoke, came apart and spilled along the runway for a hundred yards. A second, coming close behind it, plowed into the wreckage of its comrade, rolled over and over and became a furiously burning pyre. ”

“ His book has the cold steel precision of truth.
He shows that all wars have economic causes, no matter how they are painted over with sentiment. And he demonstrates that one of the most urgent economic incentives to war that has ever existed will be the relative condition of Europe and the United States at the close of the Great War.
Imagine the victors of this gigantic conflict—Allies or Teutons—impoverished in money and resources, with the most colossal public debt in the world's history hanging over them, but possessing an enormous army of trained veterans and a world-beating navy. ”

“ According to tradition the drones were the spawn of ancient evil and themselves wholly evil—but, Dworn was thinking, perhaps their existence produced good if, once in a generation or in ten generations, they came to remind the warring peoples that fundamentally all life was one in its eonlong conflict with no-life. ”

“ Austria-Hungary is a dual kingdom, each partner to the union having its separate national organization and legislative body. While both are under the rule of one monarch, Francis Joseph being at once the Emperor of Austria and the King of Hungary, their union is not a very intimate one. There is large racial distinction between the two countries, and Hungary cherishes a strong feeling of animosity to Austria, the outcome of acts of tyranny and barbarity not far in the past. ”

“ The Polish provinces, for instance, however unfriendly toward Russia, as one of the dismemberers of the Polish kingdom, are strongly bound in blood and speech to the Russian nation. The Poles and Russians are brother Slavs, and are likely to remember this in any conflict which approaches an issue between Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism. The Poles of East Prussia have an ingrained hatred of their German masters and have been embittered by political oppression almost to the point of revolt. Those along Austria’s eastern border are little less bitter. ”

“ Just as England and France secured the entry into the war of Italy through the Treaty of London, so did the Emperor Francis Joseph and Burian, as well as the Government in Berlin, give binding promises to the Bulgars to secure their co-operation, and these promises proved later to be the greatest obstacles to a peace of understanding. Nevertheless, no sensible person can deny that it is natural that a state engaged in a life-and-death struggle should seek an ally without first asking whether the keeping of a promise later will give rise to important or minor difficulties. ”

“ I myself would never have made a separate peace. I have never, not even in the hour of disillusionment—I may say of despair at my inability to lead the policy of Berlin into wiser channels—even in such hours, I say, I have never forgotten that our alliance with the German Empire was no ordinary alliance, no such alliance as may be contracted by two Emperors or two Governments, and can easily be broken, but an alliance of blood, a blood-brotherhood between the ten million Austro-Germans and the seventy million of the Empire, which could not be broken. ”

“ The Alliance with Austria-Hungary compels us to take action should Austria-Hungary be attacked by Russia. In that case France would also be involved, and in those circumstances England would not long remain quiescent. The present prevailing questions of dispute cannot be compared with that danger. It cannot be the intention of the Alliance that we, the life interest of our ally not being endangered, should enter upon a life-and-death conflict for a caprice of that ally. Should it become evident that the other side intend to attack, the danger must then be faced. ”

“ The tall blonde spider, Purri, was grinning maliciously down at him. "Hear the beetle talk! I suppose, after a day spent in what, for you was comparative idleness, you felt like doing something really strenuous ... say going out and demolishing the drones' hive bare handed...?"
Dworn climbed to his feet. With a violent effort he kept from wincing at the protest of stiffened muscles and yesterday's collection of bruises.
"What's going on out there now? Where's Qanya?"
"There's really nothing more you can do, you know. ”

“ Meantime, the wingless drones about their beleaguered citadel worked feverishly to clear the way for their fighters that still remained undamaged on the ground.... Within minutes, unless something happened to turn the tide, there would be enough flying drones aloft to break the attack and inflict terrible losses.
Dworn found himself alongside the scorpion, just as its tail gun fired once more. The muzzle blast almost knocked him down, but he clawed his way up the side of the machine and began hammering on the observation turret hatch-cover. ”

“ The Entente, who would not allow the war to end and kept up the blockade for months after the cessation of hostilities, has made Bolshevism a danger to the world. War is its father, famine its mother, despair its godfather. The poison of Bolshevism will course in the veins of Europe for many a long year.
Versailles is not the end of the war, it is only a phase of it. The war goes on, though in another form. I think that the coming generation will not call the great drama of the last five years the world-war, but the world-revolution, which it will realise began with the world-war. ”

“ Somewhere it will all be to do over again." Dworn glanced toward the empty west, whither the queen flier had disappeared—where, perhaps, by now it would have crash-landed two or three hundred miles away, to spew forth its cargo of pygmy workers and (if the inhabitants or the area where it descended didn't discover and scotch it in time) to construct more workers, fighters, a hive no less formidable than the one that had perished today.
Dworn said, brow thoughtfully furrowed: "But maybe there's a good reason, even for the drones. Maybe they serve a purpose...." ”

“ Since the opening of the Peace Congress at Versailles continuous war in Europe has been seen: Russians against the whole world, Czechs against Hungarians, Roumanians against Hungarians, Poles against Ukrainians, Southern Slavs against Germans, Communists against Socialists. Three-fourths of Europe is turned into a witch's cauldron where everything is concocted except work and production, and it is futile to ask how this self-lacerated Europe will be able to find the war expenses laid upon her. ”