Edward Bagnall Poulton

“ The impression produced upon a people that is told very little, is that our lawyer-politicians have been more concerned to keep friendly with neutral nations, and especially America, than to beat Germany. If we had from the very first stopped, not only cotton, fats, and oils for making ammunition, but everything from entering Germany and Austria through any channel, would the grievance against us compare with America's grievance against Germany? ”

“ But the sting in these words is only for the expert witness, by no means for the barrister whose position is understood by every one. We must recognize to the full that, in its professional sphere, the work of the advocate is essential to the community, and that the experience of ages has failed to discover any other way of doing it. But in the quite different sphere of legislation, and especially government, too much of the advocate's spirit is dangerous: in a terrible crisis when law inevitably shrinks into the background, it is disastrous. ”

“ It is indeed a revelation of the dangers to which we are brought by the neglect of science when in the most terrible crisis of our national history 'success or failure in arresting the supply of materials for making German explosives depends upon the patriotism of a firm willing to sacrifice their profits for the sake of national gain, instead of upon a Government issuing resolute orders based upon expert knowledge'. ”

“ Then, instead of a war fought out to the bitter end in a series of decisive battles, we shall have as a substitute a long period of continually increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. The war, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which neither army being able to get at the other, both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, threatening each other, but never being able to deliver a final and decisive attack. ”

“ It is important to remember too that a scientific training brings other benefits besides the knowledge of science, benefits we terribly need to-day. It is not mere accident that has made all-round efficiency and competence, in this time of stress, so conspicuous in those departments which by their very nature are founded on science and must always keep in touch with science—the Navy and the Medical Service. ”

“ But this and every other subject which might be chosen by a naturalist in ordinary years seemed to shrink away under the great and overshadowing menace of the war. In this struggle science has played, and will continue to play, a tremendous part. It seemed appropriate, therefore, that a scientific man should take as his subject the bearing of science upon the great war, all the more so when he is convinced that we must employ science a great deal more than we have done in order to achieve success. ”

“ And when the war is profoundly and, as experts maintain, disastrously influenced by vital decisions put into operation without explanation and as silently withdrawn, opinions that are helpful neither to the Government nor the country are bound to be expressed. When an Englishman ascertains that, by Article 28 of the Declaration of London, all kinds of material necessary for the conduct of war may not be made contraband, he is left hesitating between flabby sentimentalism and concealed German influence. ”

“ Untold thousands of lives and an ever-growing volume of human misery are a terrible punishment for the neglect of science.
I come now to an entirely different aspect of the war, but one in which the Government requires the aid of science just as fully as in the provision of ammunition. It is possible that military experts are mistaken in thinking that the final decision can be reached by fighting. ”

“ I very much doubt whether civilized means of warfare will ever win against this combination if relentlessly pushed to its logical and physical extreme, and so far as I can see Germany has every intention of pushing it just that far. We are unquestionably witnessing the most stupendously interesting step of human evolution that has occurred since that which differentiated man from the anthropoid—this of course on the assumption that Germany wins, which it seems to me every day more likely that she is going to do. ”

“ We are kept very much in the dark and can only surmise. The impression is gained that the Board of Trade is instructed to encourage exports in every possible way, and finds it much easier to succeed when the supply of German needs is not looked at too critically. So we have the War Office and the Admiralty trying to fight Germany while the Board of Trade supplies Germany through neutrals, and the Foreign Office takes care that the Navy does not exert too strong a pressure on her. Modern civilization has been described as 'anarchy plus the policeman'. ”

“ I would not for a moment undervalue what is done for science or the great improvement that has been effected in the teaching of science in the public schools. But with all this, for which we are most grateful, there exists a distorted estimate of values. A clever boy is thought to be wasted if he does not study classics. ”

“ Although compelled to fight along lines which her military writers have always condemned, Germany, beaten at the Marne, was ready with a second line of defence at the Aisne. What a contrast between military and psychological intelligence is presented by a nation which has deprived itself of every chance except complete victory ”

“ Our diplomacy and the state of our preparations equally show that we intended no aggressive war, while, as for defence, we were ready to do everything that had been put down as our reasonable share. No one of the allied nations had realized or could realize the deadly meaning of the organized effort and preparation carried on by Germany for a generation. No one supposed that we should be required to hold the seas and also to raise an army on the continental scale. ”

“ The disaster of Magersfontein immediately raised in my mind the obvious suggestion that the use of smoke as a cover would facilitate approach to an enemy's trench—a suggestion deepened and confirmed by Buller's costly, and for a long time unsuccessful, attempts to relieve Ladysmith. A curtain of smoke rising from a line of smoke-producing shells need not necessarily mean attack on the first, second, or any other particular occasion, but the enemy would be kept in a state of tension and uncertainty favourable to a successful attack when it was finally delivered. ”

“ The appliances that have come in since 1870—smokeless powder, immense precision and range—are on the whole against the peculiar genius of the British soldier. He can learn to use these advantages, indeed to use them splendidly; but they are not natural to him like the weapons of old, when men were directed to reserve their fire until they could see the whites of the enemy's eyes, or were even advised, as in Cromwell's day, not to pull the trigger until they could press the pistol against the enemy's body. ”

“ In order that our lawyer-politicians and the powerful but silent services which they represent in Parliament may know what their neglect of science has done and is doing for our enemies, I will now state as briefly as possible the essential facts concerning the making of powerful smokeless, propulsive ammunition of every kind as used for military purposes. ”

“ The inference from one of our exports would be really amusing if one had the heart to be amused at the weakening of our extremely strong position by our own action. The export of sugar from Germany was checked, because of the anticipated deficiency in oils and fats, Eltzbacher saying plainly that the people did not eat nearly as much sugar as the English, and that they would have to eat more. ”

“ The scientific man, whatever be his capacity or value, rarely has the opportunity of entering Parliament. At the present time the barrister is the only member of the community who benefits by seeking a political career, and for this reason he is certain to be over-represented, certain also, by the very nature of his profession, to be too powerful. The danger would not be nearly so great if the lawyer in Parliament and in the Government did not almost invariably mean the advocate. ”

“ It is the last stuff required for ammunition by the Germans. Copper, nitrate, cotton are now absolute contraband: fats remain. One-third of German ammunition for heavy guns consists of nitro-glycerine; and fats [and oils] are the only source of glycerine. I really can't understand the incredible folly of going on providing these brutes with the means of killing our men.' And Lord Robert Cecil is positively amazed when we say that the Government allows Germany to be provided with ammunition for this very purpose. ”

“ There is some reason for thinking that the German psychology of war has gone astray because military autocrats have been led to judge of other people by their own. The German subjugation by the State is so excessive that it is but little removed from slavery. ”

“ Hence by the conditions of education and the means of making a living in this country, not only is the scientific spirit excluded from Parliament, but the spirit of all others the most antagonistic to science is invited to enter and to rule. ”

“ Instead of science, in this case the science of health, being an essential thing which the leader must secure first of all as a foundation for everything else, it is revealed as something outside, something to be neglected until the nuisance of listening to its demands becomes more intolerable than the nuisance of acceding to them. ”

“ The German success in trench warfare is entirely due to the use of science. English science, at least equal and probably better, has always been longing to help. The difficulty is to make such help sufficiently available in a country where science has been habitually neglected. We have read again and again that the German flares which guard against night attack are much better than ours. Of course this only means that English chemists have not been asked to discover something better. ”

“ They had to frighten the people into economy, and yet dared not frighten them too much. The only chance of success lay in persuading the people that their efforts would not be in vain. Eltzbacher's memoir will be found to strike the balance between these two objects—to frighten and yet to reassure—in an extremely skilful manner. ”

“ It is a curious and unfortunate circumstance, and not without its bearing on the present condition, that when the advocate meets the scientific man as a witness he too often encounters another advocate rather than a scientific man. ”

“ This is constantly being overlooked by many classes; for instance, certain persons interested in sugar are doing all they can to induce the Government either to permit the export of sugar or to keep up the price of sugar at home by fixing minimum prices or making similar regulations. Many people support these endeavours on the ground that money must be earned somehow. The argument is not sound. There is no need to earn money. We are all making sacrifices in these grave times, and the sugar producers and dealers will have to join us for good or evil. ”

“ Has he asked for a report from the Royal Society's Committee on the Food-supply of Germany? What we really need to end the war is knowledge and firm action based on it. As it is, with its slipshod ways of conducting war and neglect of scientific authority, our own Government has done very much to help Germany out of the difficulty. It has ignored, as Dr. Waller says in the Introduction to the English translation, 'the obvious fact that the food of a besieged nation, as of a besieged fortress, in tons of bread, meat, and potatoes is as truly its ammunition as are its shells'. ”

“ Whatever we may do or not do, the Germans have given us full credit for trying to starve them out, while they have undoubtedly tried their best to do the same to us, not hesitating to adopt vile and murderous methods to which no other nation could have stooped. ”

“ The want of a scientific spirit in the army has been even more conspicuous, and has led to more tragic consequences in the use of men than in the use of material. Professor Spenser Wilkinson, in the Westminster Gazette for August 14 last, tells us how he came to the conclusion that the army was not getting the best men from Oxford, and yet that for the war he believed to be coming 'the array would need leaders of the highest stamp, men of the same intelligence as is expected from those who make a mark in the learned professions'. ”

“ The advocate labours to give to his case, whether true or false, the appearance of truth: the scientific man labours to strip off appearance and discover whether the true or the false is hidden beneath. Huxley once told how a rich friend of his youth was sure that he would make a successful barrister, and offered to back the opinion by financial assistance. ”