Ernest F. Henderson

“ Where shall we stand in the new order of things? Will a Japan that has conquered a China, a Russia and a Germany submit to American exclusion acts? Her fleet already outnumbers ours in ships of all types except ships of the line, and her naval appropriations are progressing more steadily than our own. And when Japan secures what she wishes from us, China will be ready to make the same demands. It is a far cry since Austria interpreted the five vowels in her favor: Alles Erdreich ist Österreich unterthan (all earthly kingdoms are subject to Austria) . Which will be the next world-power? ”

“ When a great and extraordinary event takes place it is easy, somewhere in the world, to point to omens and prophecies that have heralded it. But in the case of the present war we can see in the German newspapers how, from month to month of the present year, the struggle was felt to be more and more imminent and how Russia, the power that eventually precipitated the catastrophe, was felt to be the center of real danger. ”

“ It is the twilight of the gods. Is Germany the Walhalla that is to fall in ruins? Or is she merely about to build a Walhalla that shall project over all other political edifices? The moment is a serious one for us Americans. ”

“ Practically its only weapon is the torpedo, for projecting which it carries four tubes on deck; its small guns are merely for use against other torpedo-boats. Its chief defense is its extreme swiftness, for some of the boats have a speed of thirty-eight miles an hour. It can turn, too, incredibly quickly, for it has a rudder in the bow as well as in the stern. It is unarmored, but is painted black for its protection. For it is a creature of the night, stealing up in the darkness with its deadly weapon and scarcely ever exposing itself to the enemy’s guns by the light of day. ”

“ Russia, with her one hundred sixty millions, is likely to claim a much vaster influence than she has yet had. Napoleon would once have been willing to share Europe with Czar Alexander; will some such partition enter into the new treaty of peace? Will it perhaps be between Teuton and Slav and will England have to move to Canada and France to Africa? I can not believe, in any case, that Germany will succumb. She is reproached now by sentimental ladies with having devoted such serious study to the work of destruction. She devotes serious study to everything that she attempts. ”

“ One can conceive of a single ship, under favorable conditions, throwing down enough explosives on an army to put it completely to rout. But the Zeppelin is a very big target and its motors make enough noise to warn a whole city of its approach. Russia and Germany herself now have many vertical guns for shooting air-ships. On the other hand, a Zeppelin can fly very high and can take refuge behind a cloud. Its chief objects of attack will doubtless be arsenals, dockyards, bridges and tunnel-mouths, though no fleet near the shore and no camp can feel quite safe from it in future. ”

“ It is less far from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic than it is from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Gibraltar will soon be as irksome to Pan-Slavism as are now the forts on the Dardanelles. Your own race is made up mainly of Angles and Saxons—all your ideals, all your real interests are far closer to those of the Germans than they are to those of the Russians. The time may come, and very soon, when you are only too glad to throw yourself around Germany’s neck and beg her aid in opposing the hordes from the East. ”

“ Under the harmless title of ‘trial-mobilization’ and the still more harmless one of ‘exercises for the reserves’ Russia, then, for a period of six weeks, is placing its giant army practically on a war-footing. Think of 1,800,000 men holding military exercises at a time when Austria has 200,000, Germany from 300,000 to 400,000 trained men at her immediate disposal! ”

“ In the German army the cavalry is merely an adjunct of the infantry. It is the infantry which decides battles—not [Pg 34] the cavalry, not even the artillery. However, the infantry of to-day is something very different from the infantry of the eighteenth and even from that of a great part of the nineteenth century. German military writers acknowledge that the world learned new tactics from the sharpshooters and riflemen of the American war of the rebellion. The whole modern battle formation rests on the idea of giving more play to the individual. ”

“ To blame the German emperor for what followed is the attitude of the uninformed. Germany has foreseen the struggle, as our extracts from the newspapers show, but her one idea has been self-defense. The worst that can be said of her is that her wonderful prosperity has made her a little boastful and that she has talked too much about her share in world politics and her own “place in the sun.” ”

“ It has been thought in some quarters that aeroplanes and other contrivances for scouting and communication would supersede cavalry, but the German army administration evidently does not think so, as it has more than 150,000 horses in use even in time of peace. In time of war all private horses are subject to requisition, as are also automobiles, motor-trucks, motor-wheels and aeroplanes. The better riders in a regiment train the horses for the rest, and there is a constant mustering out of the inferior ones in favor of others that are stronger or younger or more docile. ”

“ Another method that may be applied against Germany is the blockading of her North Sea coast. A blockade, according to the Paris declaration of 1856 and again according to the London conference of 1908, must be effective in order to be binding; a country may not, in other words, simply declare an enemy’s coasts in a state of blockade, but must have enough ships there to enforce the regulations. A successful blockade hinders even neutral ships from landing and is the best way of preventing the entry of contraband of war and of paralyzing all commerce. ”

“ I have said that the modern idea is to give more play to the individual. Within certain limits the men choose their own position, find the proper rests for their rifles, get each the range for himself, determine the speed of their own fire and use their own judgment in the economizing of ammunition. They are expected to advance according as they see their opportunity.
A glance at the methods of training the infantry will give some idea of the care and thoroughness with which the Germans have made their preparations for war. ”

“ If the submarine has not, as was at one time expected, completely revolutionized naval warfare, it has at least so far asserted itself that it can never be left wholly out of the reckoning. Its improvement has kept pace with that of the torpedo-boat in stability, in size and in manageableness. The newest boats have a displacement of a thousand tons, and long sea voyages are now possible. Germany has far fewer torpedo-boats than has England, but claims that hers are much stronger and much better adapted for service in rough weather and on the high seas. ”

“ A clever writer, such as we have for detective stories, would [Pg 97] have little difficulty in convincingly foisting the guilt on each of the great powers in succession. Austria is to blame for her ultimatum to Servia, Russia for mobilizing against Austria, France for entering the conflict when the matter did not concern her at all, Germany for demanding Russian demobilization, England for stabbing Germany in the back when she was already struggling with enemies on either side, Japan for her bumptious self-assertion. ”

“ The German fleet often practises at that range, firing at a moving target which is dragged along by another boat. On each modern gun is a telescope, and there are instruments for determining the distance at any given moment, as well as complicated adjustments for sighting and aiming. The projectiles used in the biggest guns weigh each nearly a ton and cost well up into the thousands, so every precaution is taken not to waste them. We can no longer speak of a cannon-ball, for the modern charges are cylindrical, pointed and filled with explosives so as to inflict the utmost damage for the money. ”

“ When there is no enemy in the immediate vicinity the submarine rides the waves like any other boat; when [Pg 84] there is danger she dives like a duck. Just before firing her torpedo she comes to the surface for an instant to get one last good look. She is helpless at that moment, of course, but trusts to not being seen in time. When under water her speed is only about ten miles an hour, as the pressure is very great; on the surface she can travel about sixteen. Her slowness is a disadvantage, for she can only lurk for and intercept a fleet, not pursue and overtake it. ”

“ Germany is putting, so it is estimated, some four million men into the field. And behind them, should the war last long, are nearly a million boys who belong to the Prussian Jung Deutschland and to the Bavarian Wehrkraftverein. Boy scouts, we should call them in our country, but in Germany they are regularly trained by officers in the army—an occupation of these sinecure-holders that I omitted to mention. They are taken in squads on long tramps, are trained to use their eyes and ears and enjoy the life of the hills and woods. They carry their cooking utensils and prepare their own meals. ”

“ A mine, as the reader probably knows, is a cask filled with high explosives and fastened by means of weights and anchors so that it floats some feet below the surface. Mines can be planted in fields, as it were, by torpedo-boats or submarine and then a hostile fleet can be lured or chased in among them. The North Sea, as we know, is at present thickly strewn with them and fatal results have already been chronicled. Air-ships and aeroplanes can help by finding the whereabouts of the hostile fleet and designating by wireless the spots where the mines should be planted. ”

“ The general structure of the army does not change in time of war. Instead of numbering five or six hundred men [Pg 58] the size of a battalion is raised to eleven hundred or more. There are supplementary troops in all branches, consisting partly of retired soldiers and partly of raw recruits, who must be licked into shape as quickly as possible, but who serve mainly to fill up the ranks at the front as they become depleted. Every able-bodied man must leave his occupation and take to the ranks whether he has had military training or not. ”

“ We have thus far spoken only of ships of the line, and, although we shall have to return to them in a moment, a few words must first be said as to the use of the other categories of ships in actual warfare. Armored cruisers in themselves are nothing new. England has forty-four of them, France nineteen, Japan fifteen and Germany and the United States each fourteen. But great armored battle-cruisers have existed only since 1907 and are possessed as yet by only three powers: England has ten; Germany has, or had, five (for the Goeben is out of the running) , and Japan has two. ”

“ Submarine Fleet in Harbor at Kiel
There are hundreds of the little black devils in the navy, and they have every sort of trick for concealment and escape. By running very swiftly they can keep the smoke from rising vertically from their funnels and thus betraying their presence. They often go forth in flotillas and if an enemy start to chase them they scatter, having previously arranged where they are to meet again. They come bow on to the ship they mean to injure, for the distance between them will then increase more rapidly. ”

“ As in Russia, the recruits are called in at latest by November fifteenth. Russia will, until spring, still have under arms, besides the recruits, the trained contingents of three years in the infantry—four, indeed, in the cavalry. That considerably increases her readiness for war. And in addition to lengthening the term of service the number of recruits is still further increased by twenty thousand men. The momentary military strength of the Russian empire is about one and one-half millions, of which about 1,200,000 concern Europe (thirty army corps and twenty-four cavalry divisions) . ”

“ And peace-time is the mere waiting-period, the period of training for the real work. In war-time the fate of the whole country hangs on the officer. An Italian, Mangiarotti, recently inquired of some two thousand soldiers who had just taken part in the African campaign regarding their sensations when facing the enemy. ”

“ They are the Gatling guns of our own country, and every German infantry regiment now—since the army reform of 1913—has a machine-gun company. It consists of ninety men and forty horses, with six guns and three ammunition wagons. As the newest guns can fire at the rate of six hundred shots a minute, and as there are more than two hundred infantry regiments, not to speak of the cavalry and artillery, which also have their companies of “Gatlings,” one can gain some impression of the deadliness of modern campaigning. ”

“ According to the Paris international agreement of 1856 there shall be no privateering, which means that individuals may not fit out ships and take prizes, but does not mean that the property of individuals, if they are subjects of one or other of the warring powers, may not be seized. Prizes of war may either be towed into the nearest port or, after the crews and passengers have been taken off, may be sent to the bottom with all their cargo. To be effective, however, this method of warfare must be methodically pursued, which means regularly employing a force of swift cruisers. ”

“ As many men are now engaged simultaneously as were then called out in the course of years. And the instruments of death are a hundred times more deadly. From the skies above destruction rains down; from subterranean forts and from the depths of the sea it wells up. The difference between hand labor and machinery has been transmitted into terms of killing; we have artificial earthquakes and eruptions. ”

“ Counting in this, France, with 40,000,000 inhabitants, has a larger army in time of peace than Germany, with 65,000,000. The French army has further advantages in the longer training and in the increased readiness for war. The troops covering the eastern frontiers have two hundred men to a company (four-fifths of the war strength) and even at the time when the recruits are being mustered in, one hundred forty trained men; while our companies at the same time can dispose of only half so strong a number. ”

“ The stake, it is true, became greater as ships representing a capital of millions and carrying hundreds of men took the place of the little boats, but the method remained the same. Commander and crew, by progressing from easier to more difficult and more warlike maneuvers, achieved that feeling of security which is not a foolish scorn of danger but the knowledge of power to cope with it. That is the state of mind which makes for success in war and which enables one to win all by risking all. ”