Science of war

“ As an applied science, war is half human, half mechanical; it is, therefore, pre-eminently a live or dynamic science, a science which must grow with human understanding itself, so that its means of action, materialised in the soldier, may not only keep level with progress but absorb it to its own particular ends. ”

“ Conclusion.—The facts which we have surveyed in early chapters, and the development foreshadowed above, form part of a much wider subject, for they are but one aspect of scientific warfare. In what main directions has science modified or revolutionised modern war? ”

“ So terrible has modern war become that with each great conflict it has seemed as if its very dreadfulness would stay the hand of the invader and make him hesitate to expose his men to the horrible monsters which science and invention have created. ”

“ Such a scientific analysis of any subject has for its chief practical aim the improvement of the art, or practice, of that subject. Forming an important part of the science of war are those new developments in weapons and in other technological fields which, with the passage of time, have brought about great changes in methods of waging war. ”

“ Time and again has it been asserted that war itself is the sole test of a soldier’s worth and that on the battlefield alone will the great be sifted from the little.
And why? Because, until to-day, we have never emerged from what may be called the “alchemical” epoch of warfare, the compounding of illusions without knowledge, the application of actions without understanding; we have not reduced war to a science founded on definite principles nor learnt that 99 per cent. of victory depends on weapons, machinery placed in the hands of man so that he may kill without being injured. ”

“ It is only through founding the art of war—the application of the science of war to actual military situations—on the fundamental truths discovered through the science of war, that changes in method, due to technological evolution, can be made most effective. ”

“ When the final history of the world-war comes to be written, one of its most interesting chapters will be a description of the methods and devices which were used by the armies on both sides to destroy the will to war in the troops and among the peoples behind the lines. If the application of modern science to war has multiplied the engines of destruction, the increase of communication and the interpenetration of peoples has given war among civilized peoples the character of an internal and internecine struggle. ”

“ It has often been asked what would happen if savages were armed with the products of modern science and with the intelligence to use them. Germany has answered the question. Every resource of science lies at the German command; the chemist, the physicist, the metallurgist, have all worked in this war to place the most effective tools of destruction in the Germans' hands, and to satisfy their ambitions they have shut the gates of mercy on mankind. ”

“ War had been conceived by her, not as a thing of swift inspiration, but as something prepared long before in the scientist's laboratory—the personal factor subordinated to the machine. Conquest of the air, the discovery of wireless telegraphy, the development of motor-traction, the achievements of chemistry in the matter of high explosives, all had worked to the advantage of the Power which had been most industrious in the practical applications of science and most concerned in making them subservient to war. ”

“ War has now evolved into a science, most complex, many-sided, and embracing practically all the other sciences. As instruments of warfare become more and more intricate, volunteer forces become less and less efficient. ”

“ I am here to warn you soldiers against enemies more subtle, more dangerous, and more fatal than the Germans, enemies against which no successful battle can be fought without your intelligent coöperation. So far the world has only seen one great war waged with the weapons of science against these foes. Our allies, the Japanese, went into the Russian campaign prepared as fully against bacilli as against bullets, with the result that the percentage of deaths from disease was the lowest that has ever been attained in a great war. ”

“ Under the old order of international anarchy, war came overnight, and the world was on fire before we knew it. It sickens our senses to think of another. We saw one conflict into which modern science brought new forms of destruction in great guns, submarines, airships, and poison gases. ”

“ War is mechanism and science, inspiration and rule; a genuine staff for an army is a scientific law, and if this law is not recognized and is violated, then the disasters become a mathematically certain result. ”

“ War in its ensemble is not a science, but an art. Strategy, particularly, may indeed be regulated by fixed laws resembling those of the positive sciences, but this is not true of war viewed as a whole. Among other things, combats may be mentioned as often being quite independent of scientific combinations, and they may become essentially dramatic, personal qualities and inspirations and a thousand other things frequently being the controlling elements. ”

“ What theory and science is possible about a matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or the enemy’s armies will be in a day’s time, and no one can gauge the force of this or that detachment. ”

“ While science has been used in war at all times and has been a formidable arm in the hands of those who have known how to use it, still the limits of its use have been fixed with more or less rigor. Even before the conventions of The Hague were formulated, there was the general recognition of the natural distinction between civilized and barbarous warfare. ”

“ But there is abundant evidence that a country at war must, in the final test, rely for success upon the marching, shooting, bayonet-thrusting, trench-digging, misery-enduring qualities of the common soldier, of that primitive war engine that dates from the cave-dweller and beyond. ”

“ SCIENCE IN RELATION TO WAR.
HOW the art of war, by the powerful stimulus it has given to the investigation of the properties of projectiles and numerous kindred researches, has been an efficient promoter of progress in physical science, is well understood. The strife among engineers to construct guns that shall be able to pierce any barrier, and to construct barriers that shall resist all guns, has led to results in improving the quality of metals which could hardly have been gained in any other way. ”

“ The whole science of great military combination is comprised in these two fundamental truths. Therefore, all movements that are disconnected or more extended than those of the enemy would be grave faults ”

“ They have shown the world that now and henceforth war means this and nothing less than this. If there is to be another war in twenty or thirty years' time, what will it be like? If there is to be concentrated preparation for more war, the researches of science will be devoted henceforth to discovering methods by which the human race can be destroyed. These discoveries cannot be confined to one nation and their object of wholesale destruction will be much more completely achieved hereafter even than in this war. ”

“ Most of us will think that the dangers are here exaggerated, and that, when their help is seriously sought and they are given some initiative and power, British scientific men can do as well or better in the devices of warfare than Germans. ”

“ Military science and art are equally the results of experience in war. Principles of strategy have grown out of the exercise of the highest military mind in weighing the general features of campaigns, and from the perceptive and logical recognition of those elements essential to success. The art of war has grown up as a body of practices, traditions, and rules, naturally resulting from the immense sum of experience in military life and action among all nations. ”

“ WHEREAS, War is now a threat to the very existence of our civilization, because modern science has produced weapons of war which are overwhelmingly destructive and against which there is no sure defense ”

“ For, in spite of apparent exceptions, the tendency of the transition from heroic to democratic ages is to transfer both in war and in politics the decisive influence from the individual to the mass, from the protagonist to the private; and modern warfare, with its complexity and its science, has become mainly a matter of mechanics. ”

“ OF the terrible engines of destruction that science, the handmaiden of war as well as of peace, has brought to the firing line in this present world conflict, there is none more terrible for offense, more potent for defense, than that war engine supplied by nature—man. ”

“ The business of peace is now, largely, to turn to account the discoveries of the war—in mechanics, chemistry, electricity, medical science, methods of organisation, and a score of other branches of human knowledge, and that in the interests of life, and not of death. ”

“ His comparison of the ancient strategy with the modern science of warfare is so clearly illustrated, and so forcibly reasoned, as to possess a profound interest not only for professional military men, but for all readers who delight in the removal of learned dust from the records of antiquity. ”

“ I do not mention them, because the obvious in war seems to be so often neglected, and some of them may be still untried by our enemies. But the principal suggestion was that a scientific man should be put in charge of a small range and given every opportunity of experimenting. ”

“ The men themselves were hardy, active, brave and intelligent. Their drill and discipline had been carefully adapted from the best European models. Their arms were of the latest and most destructive patterns that science has been able to devise, and every detail in their equipment and accoutrements had been thoroughly thought out and carefully provided. ”

“ Another group said, "Modern science has made war [151] so terrible and so destructive that men will not take part in it, or if this is not true now, it soon will be." When we think of what has occurred and is occurring every day in the present war, this seems also unlikely. ”

“ But it is quite easy to show that the destructive and horrible nature of modern warfare is due, not to the weapons used, but largely to the other applications of science which constitute the material basis of our civilization. ”

“ "Without war the lower elements of mankind have increased all out of proportion. They threaten the educated few, those with scientific knowledge and training, the ones equipped to direct society. They have no regard for science or a scientific society, based on reason. And this Movement seeks to aid and abet them. Only when scientists are in full control can the—"
He looked at his watch and then kicked the car door open. ”

“ This invention, by which the personal barbarity of war has certainly been diminished, is, when considered as a means of human destruction, by far the most powerful that skill has ever devised, or accident presented; acquiring, as experience shows us, a more sanguinary dominion in every succeeding age, and subserving all the progressive resources of science and civilization for the extermination of mankind: which, says Mr. ”

“ Peace-time experiments have their value—and it is very great—in establishing data as to the effect of fire on troops in different formations, the limits of permissible error in ranging, &c., on the principle that of two methods, that which is proved to be better in peace would in much the same proportion be found better in war. ”

“ If we call to mind the centuries of invasion and threats of invasion by Northmen, Ottomans and Saracens, we can appreciate the value of the means of defense which science has given to the civilized nations. ”

“ The very implements of our warfare change less than we think. Our bullets and cannon-balls have lengthened into bolts like those which whistled out of old arbalests. Our soldiers fight with weapons, such as are pictured on the walls of Theban tombs, wearing a newly invented head-gear as old as the days of the Pyramids.
Whatever miseries this war brings upon us, it is making us wiser, and, we trust, better. Wiser, for we are learning our weakness, our narrowness, our selfishness, our ignorance, in lessons of sorrow and shame. ”

“ In direct proportion as warfare becomes more scientific, complicated, and expensive does it require longer time to prepare for war, both in the making of the enginery and in the making of the soldiers. ”

“ In a general way, scientific inventions—don't confuse them with the sciences, which merit all veneration—conspire to give to this war a character of atrocity to which no armed conflict has ever attained, and I wish that it could be proved to me that they alleviate it in equal proportion. Think only of the horror which this 'progress' in the art of extermination inspires. How many brains are unable to resist it? Civilians are dying every day, and the best of them, who go to pieces merely from imagining the war. We see them fall like the hollow bark which still seems to support a tree. ”

“ Any struggle between men is, in the last analysis, a battle of wits, but it remained for those planning and scheming to defeat their fellow men or protect themselves in the world conflict to make for the first time in history the fullest use of the chemist's knowledge. Largely the successes of the war have been due to the studies and activities of the chemists, working in their laboratories far from the actual field of strife. ”

“ THE cool way in which they discussed battleships, submarines, aerial bombs, torpedoes, and all the rest of the wonderful up-to-date machine contrivances and devices for the abrupt and violent introduction of foreign substances into the bodies of their fellow mortals would have been peculiarly edifying to the contemplative mind of a philosopher. For, come to think of it, that is just what war is—the introduction of foreign substances into men's bodies with violent and disruptive intent. ”