Modern warfare

“ The increase in armies, the frightful implements of slaughter, the total failure of the peace propaganda—they have all defied civilization!
“And then, too, the old, red-blooded emotions of battle have all been eliminated by the mechanical conditions of modern warfare in which men and women are just so many units, automata. ”

“ But the notion that improved weapons give modern armies and navies an increased killing ability—that the warfare of the future will be a bloodier business than that which we have the happiness to know—is an error which the observant lover of peace is denied the satisfaction of entertaining. ”

“ CUCKOO-SPIT. SPIDER-CRAB. MASKING GUNS. BIRNAM WOOD.
Just, then, as forts have latterly sunk into the earth for the purpose of strength, so have our modern soldiers found that the true principle of modern warfare is never to lose sight of the enemy, and never to allow the enemy to see yourself or the disposal of your troops.{146}
Everything must be revealed to the commander-in-chief, everything must be concealed from the enemy. ”

“ So the Americans in their first attack had the aid of every engine of modern warfare—tanks, gas, flame throwers, smoke barrage, numbers of airplanes, machine guns and automatic rifles, while some especially heavy trench mortars also were concentrated and hurled great bombs into the German trenches from close range. ”

“ Military operations will be across a wide spectrum of warfare and will demand flexibility. Modern war will require our military leadership to navigate through a changing spectrum of political constraints and ever changing political goals as each scenario unfolds. We must make our forces capable of dampening the capacity of the enemy to use force by controlling the conflict rapidly even when surprised. ”

“ Whatever the tactical situation, it is by the vigour of the offensive spirit alone that success may be achieved in the face of a determined enemy.
MODERN WARFARE.—In modern warfare the defensive position plays a part of increasing importance, owing {80} to the great power conferred on the defence by modern armaments. "Machine guns and barbed wire permit the rapid organisation of defensive points of a value which cannot be disputed. In particular, they have given to a trench, or to a natural obstacle, a solidity which permits a front to be extended in a manner unsuspected before this war ”

“ But we know that modern methods of warfare make it a task, not only of shooting and fighting, but an even more urgent one of working and producing.
Victory requires the actual weapons of war and the means of transporting them to a dozen points of combat. ”

“ The development of modern civilization is certain to have developments in war both as to the purpose of war and as to the modes of war. It seems likely that in the face of the supreme danger of atomic and thermonuclear weapons nations will resort more and more to small wars and semi-war operations which will offer the opportunity of strategic advantage without the cataclysmic danger of a world-wide showdown. ”

“ The insatiable greed of gain is the source of all the dishonesties, the oppressions, the spoliations, the trickeries, the frauds, the adulterations, the cutthroat competitions, the financial piracies, the swindling schemes,--all the abuses and mischiefs which infest the world of commerce and finance. Against all these forms of evil the church must bear her testimony; but the root from which they all grow is the love of money, and it is this central and seminal sin of modern civilization that the church must assail with all the weapons of the spiritual warfare. ”

“ MAIL-CLAD STEAMERS. Exposed as we are to treason at home and jealousy abroad, it becomes the policy as well as the duty of our country to prepare with promptitude for every contingency by availing itself of all improvements in the art of war. Superior weapons double the courage and efficiency of our troops, carry dismay to the foe, and diminish the cost and delays of warfare. ”

“ I dread to see savages become expert with the rifle while the average white boy does not know one end of a gun from the other. To shoot, properly with a rifle one must be trained to it from his youth up.
The scout nowadays must have many of the faculties that Daniel Boone had and a good military training in addition. Modern guns and modern ranges have changed the whole scope of his work. One reason why the trained scout will be in greater demand in the future is that nights are going to count for as much as, and perhaps more than, days in the warfare of the future. ”

“ My thesis, which, by an historical study of this warfare, I expect to develop, is the following: In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and to science—and invariably. And, on the other hand, all untrammeled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed, for the time, to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good of religion and of science. ”

“ It will be evident that such warfare as this inevitable precision of gun and rifle forces upon humanity, will become less and less dramatic as a whole, more and more as a whole a monstrous thrust and pressure of people against people. ”

“ First among the distinguished men who, in that century, laid foundations for modern science, was Albert of Bollstadt, better known as Albert the Great, the most renowned scholar of Germany.
Fettered though he was by the absurd methods of his time, led astray as he was by the scholastic spirit, he had conceived ideas of better methods and aims. His eye pierces the mists of scholasticism; he sees the light, and draws the world toward it. He stands among the great pioneers of modern physical and natural science. ”

“ Our case requires not merely firmness in holding our position by our veterans, but affirmative, aggressive action, resulting in accessions from the hostile or neutral, captures from the enemy. If the higher morale—the better weapons, the stronger ammunition—are not with us, but against us, how are we to be capable of the kind of warfare necessary to the situation? ”

“ The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph, which methodically lays out the nature of this new environment in terms of its implications for a war against media-savvy insurgents, and then considers possible courses of action for the Army and the U.S. military as they seek to respond to an enemy that has proven enormously adaptive to this new environment and the new type of warfare it enables. ”

“ They do not appear to be endowed with that impetuous and exalted valour which seeks to confront danger and death; they would, therefore, not be well adapted for offensive warfare. But they possess, without any doubt, that severe and immovable intrepidity which sees danger and death without being shaken by them, an invaluable quality for defensive war, and which, developed by exercise and arms, may in its turn serve for the attack. ”

“ The day when men are moved in battle like machines seems to have gone by, and instead of producing machines any more we have got to train the individual soldier. One thousand men trained to think for themselves and to shoot straight can whip 10,000 drilled in the old-fashioned way. It is the greatest mistake to think that victory depends on numbers.
This new individuality and mobility will bring back the scout, who had almost died out. Many good scouts are being produced by the war with the Boers, and some excellent scouting is being done by the American army in the Philippines. ”

“ Finally, our army takes up its stand far in the rear, forming a new battle-front, which has been previously fortified.
The enemy advances, repeats the previous tactics, forming a long battle-front on commanding positions just beyond the range of our guns, and again proceeds to dislodge us, and drive us back by their long-range gun-fire.
Our loss in men and guns has been enormous. The enemy, on the contrary, has lost no guns, and but few men. ”

“ The greatest difference between the present peace movement and previous ones is that now among many of those who study the problem the offensive-defensive relationship in warfare is being not only questioned but rejected. ”

“ Day after day the American troops moved slowly forward, over rugged, difficult ground, broken by ravines and steep hills, through dense underbrush, in the face of deadly fire from artillery and nests of machine guns hidden in every vantage point, through incessant rain and mud and fog and penetrating cold, pushing the enemy steadily back, until they reached Sedan, cut the German Army’s most important line of communication, and so brought the end of the war in sight. ”

“ Modern wars are not internecine wars, in which the killing of the enemy is the object. The destruction of the enemy in modern war, and, indeed, modern war itself, are means to obtain that object of the belligerent which lies beyond the war. ”

“ With the steady aim and relentless energy tasking science to its utmost ingenuity, the multitudes of men to their utmost endurance, whole nations work day and night, fitting ourselves for the quick and extensive killing of men. This preparation for war. Armies meet on the field of battle; shot and shell rend the air; men fall to the ground like leaves in autumnal storms, bleeding, agonizing, dying; the earth is reddened by human blood; the more gory the earth beneath the tread of one army the louder the revel of victory in the ranks of the other. This, the actual conflict of war. ”

“ The defensive army, on the contrary, should endeavor, by all means, to neutralize the first forward movement of its adversary, protracting operations as long as possible while not compromising the fate of the war, and deferring a decisive battle until the time when a portion of the enemy's forces are either exhausted by labors, or scattered for the purpose of occupying invaded provinces, masking fortified places, covering sieges, protecting the line of operations, depots, &c. ”

“ The new method of warfare, with men working in trenches and dugouts and millions of shells breaking over head, while missiles rain all about, necessitated the development of some device to protect the heads of the fighters. ”

“ But send these men away on foreign service, let them encounter a campaign or two, and be brought face to face with harassing marches, with the toil of actual warfare, with the fury of the elements, heat and cold, frost and sun, and the muster roll shows a rapid diminution, even before a shot has been fired or bayonet crossed bayonet. ”

“ While the guns roar from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and the greatest armed host that history has ever known is still locked in a life-and-death struggle on a dozen fronts, another war, more potent and permanent perhaps than the one which now engulfs Europe, lurks beyond the distant horizon of peace. ”

“ It seems to me that Baden-Powell is the type of soldier to whom the future belongs -- the man who can do the thing the enemy doesn't expect. If you do what the enemy expects of you, naturally he is prepared for you. ”

“ In the middle of the twenty-second century, every nation had a standard defense. The weapons of war of each were equal--not in proportion to size, but actually, since man-power no longer counted high. ”

“ The battle is no longer between the opposing lines of the infantry, for to win a position you must hold it, and to hold it you must have brought up swiftly and safely from the rear bombs, ammunition, wire rations, and a means of entry for the supporting and relieving troops, the area of the battle is no longer the front line, it is behind this that the enemy barrage descends, and over a wide field of fire the German shells are searching for all those who would bring up succour and relief. It is under these conditions that the pioneers must do their work. ”

“ Force for defense vs. force for aggression.
The problem of the League of Peace is actually the problem of the use of force. Force internationally expressed is measured in armaments. The chief discussion which has been waged for the past decade between the pacifists and militarists has been over the question of armaments. The militarists claim that armaments insure national safety. The pacifists declare they inevitably lead to war. ”

“ The minor manoeuvres especially do not represent what is the most important feature in present-day warfare—i.e., the sudden concentration of larger forces on the one side and the impossibility, from space considerations, of timely counter-movements on the other. ”

“ Whether we shall drive the enemy from their posts with a strong body of regular troops, or whether we shall permit them to extend their devastations, while, with our battalions and fluctuating corps of militia, we protract a weak defensive war, till our allies are discouraged, and some unfavorable change takes place in the system of Europe. ”

“ Undoubtedly this means of fighting has developed the personal initiative of the soldiers, and the modern fighting machine of the nations is of a high standard, which, together with death-dealing weapons, has resulted in terrible havoc. Massed movements, such as carried on in the War of the Rebellion, have been practically done away with, and although there have been long and costly sieges, they have been carried on by tedious trench fighting, airships, hand grenades, and massive shells fired from guns of great caliber, and with a range which is really marvellous. ”

“ In this conflict we are engaged with great nations whose military preparation has extended over nearly half a century, and whose aim, as far as we can comprehend it, has been world-wide supremacy by force of arms. ”