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Anticipations Chapter 6 Part 1 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter six A of anticipations. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Anticipations
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Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells, Chapter six A War. In shaping
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Speaker 1: anticipations about the future of war, there arises a certain
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Speaker 1: difficulty about the point of departure. One may either begin
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Speaker 1: on such broad issues as the preceding forecasts have opened, and,
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Speaker 1: having determined now something of the nature of the coming
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Speaker 1: state and the force of its warlike inclination, proceed to
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Speaker 1: speculate how this vast, ill organized four fold organism will fight.
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Speaker 1: Or one may set all that matter aside for a space, and,
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Speaker 1: having regard chiefly to the continually more potent appliances physical
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Speaker 1: science offers the soldier, we may try to develop a
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Speaker 1: general impression of theoretically thorough war law, go from that
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Speaker 1: to the nature of the state most likely to be
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Speaker 1: superlatively efficient in such warfare, and so arrive at the
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Speaker 1: conditions of survival under which these present governments of confusion
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Speaker 1: will struggle one against the other. The latter course will
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Speaker 1: be taken. Here we will deal first of all with
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Speaker 1: war conducted for its own sake, with a model army
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Speaker 1: as efficient as an imaginative training can make it, and
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Speaker 1: with a model organization for warfare of the state behind it.
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Speaker 1: And then the experience of the confused modern social organism
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Speaker 1: as it is impelled in an uncongenial metamorphosis towards this
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Speaker 1: imperative and finally unavoidable efficient state, will come most easily
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Speaker 1: within the scope of one's imagination. The great change that
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Speaker 1: is working itself out in warfare is the same change
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Speaker 1: that is working itself out in the substance of the
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Speaker 1: social fabric. The essential change in the social fabric, as
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Speaker 1: we have analyzed it, is the progressive supersession of the
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Speaker 1: old broad labour base by elaborately organized mechanism, and the
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Speaker 1: obsolescence of the once valid and necessary distinction of gentle
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Speaker 1: and simple in warfare. As I have already indicated, this
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Speaker 1: takes the form of the progressive supersession of the horse
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Speaker 1: and the private soldier, which were the living and soul
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Speaker 1: engines of the old time, by machines, and the obliteration
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Speaker 1: of the old distinction between leaders who pranced in a
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Speaker 1: conspicuously dangerous and encouraging way into the picturesque incidence of
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Speaker 1: battle and the lead who cheered and charged and filled
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Speaker 1: the ditches and were slaughtered in a wholesale, dramatic manner.
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Speaker 1: The Old War was a matter of long, dreary marches,
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Speaker 1: great hardships of campaigning, but also of heroic conclusive moments,
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Speaker 1: long periods of campings, almost always with an outbreak of pestilence,
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Speaker 1: of marchings and retreats, much crude plains business of feeding
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Speaker 1: and forage culminated at last with an effect of infinite
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Speaker 1: relief in an hour or so of battle. The battle
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Speaker 1: was always a very intimate, tumultuous affair. The men were
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Speaker 1: flung at one another in vast excited masses, in living
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Speaker 1: fighting machines, as it were, Spears or bayonets flashed one
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Speaker 1: side or the other ceased to prolong the climax, and
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Speaker 1: the thing was over. The beaten force crumpled as a whole,
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Speaker 1: and the victors as a whole pressed upon it. Cavalry
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Speaker 1: with slashing sabers marked the crowning point of victory. In
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Speaker 1: the later stages of the Old warfare, musketry volleys were
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Speaker 1: added to the physical impact of the contending regiments, and
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Speaker 1: at last cannon as a quite accessory method of breaking
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Speaker 1: these masses of men. So you gave battle to and
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Speaker 1: defeated your enemy's forces wherever encountered, and when you reached
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Speaker 1: your objective in his capital, the war was. The new
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Speaker 1: war will probably have none of these features of the
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Speaker 1: old system of fighting. The revolution that is in progress
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Speaker 1: from the old war to a new war, different in
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Speaker 1: its entire nature from the old, is marked primarily by
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Speaker 1: the steady progress in range and efficiency of the rifle
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Speaker 1: and of the field gun, and more particularly of the rifle.
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Speaker 1: The rifle develops persistently from a clumsy implement that any
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Speaker 1: clown may learn to use in half a day, towards
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Speaker 1: a very intricate mechanism, easily put out of order and
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Speaker 1: easily misused, but of the most extraordinary possibilities in the
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Speaker 1: hands of men of courage, character and high intelligence. Its
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Speaker 1: precision at long range has made the business of its care,
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Speaker 1: loading and aim subsidiary to the far more intricate matter
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Speaker 1: of its use in relation to the contour of the
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Speaker 1: ground within its reach. Even its elaboration as an instrument
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Speaker 1: is probably still incomplete, And conceive it provided in the
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Speaker 1: future with cross thread telescopic sights, the focusing of which,
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Speaker 1: corrected by some ingenious use of hygroscopic material, might even
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Speaker 1: find the range and so enable it to be used
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Speaker 1: with assurance up to a mile or more. It will
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Speaker 1: probably also take on some of the characters of the
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Speaker 1: machine gun. It will be used either for single shots
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Speaker 1: or to quiver and send a spray of almost simultaneous
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Speaker 1: bullets out of a magazine, evenly and certainly over any
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Speaker 1: small area the rifleman thinks advisable. It will probably be portable.
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Speaker 2: By one man.
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Speaker 1: But there is no reason, really except the bayonet tradition,
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Speaker 1: the demands of which may be met in other ways,
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Speaker 1: why it should be the instrument of one sole man.
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Speaker 1: It will just as probably be slung with its ammunition
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Speaker 1: and equipment upon bicycle wheels, and be the common care
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Speaker 1: of two or more associated soldiers equipped with such a weapon.
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Speaker 1: A single culs of marksmen, even by reason of smokeless
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Speaker 1: powder and carefully chosen cover, might make themselves practically invisible
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Speaker 1: and capable of surprising, stopping, and destroying a visible enemy
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Speaker 1: in quite considerable numbers who blundered within a mile of them,
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Speaker 1: And a series of such groups of marksmen so arranged
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Speaker 1: as to cover the arrival of reliefs, provisions, and fresh
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Speaker 1: ammunition from the rear, might hold out against any visible
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Speaker 1: attack for an indefinite period unless the ground they occupied
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Speaker 1: was searched very ably and subtly by some sort of
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Speaker 1: gun having arranged in excess of their rifle fire. If
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Speaker 1: the ground they occupied were to be properly tunneled and trenched,
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Speaker 1: even that might not avail, and there would be nothing
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Speaker 1: for it but to attack them by an advance under cover,
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Speaker 1: either of the night, or of darkness caused by smoke shells,
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Speaker 1: or the burning of cover about their position. Even then
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Speaker 1: they might be deadly with magazine fire at close quarters.
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Speaker 1: Save for their liability to such attacks, a few hundreds
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Speaker 1: of such men could hold positions of a quite vast extent,
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Speaker 1: and a few thousand might hold a frontier.
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Speaker 2: Assuredly.
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Speaker 1: A mere handful of such men could stop the most
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Speaker 1: multitudinous attack or cover the most disorderly retreat in the world.
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Speaker 1: And even when some ingenious, daring and lucky night assault
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Speaker 1: had at last ejected them from a position, dawn would
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Speaker 1: simply restore to them the prospect of reconstituting in new
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Speaker 1: positions their enormous advantage of defense. The only really effective
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Speaker 1: and final defeat such an attenuated force of marksmen could
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Speaker 1: sustain would be from the slow and circumspect advance upon
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Speaker 1: it of a similar force of superior marksmen, creeping forward
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Speaker 1: under cover of night, or of smoke shells and fire
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Speaker 1: digging pits during the snatches of cessation obtained in this way,
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Speaker 1: and so coming nearer and nearer, and getting a completer
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Speaker 1: and completer mastery of the defender's ground, until the approach
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Speaker 1: of the defender's reliefs, food and fresh ammunition seat to
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Speaker 1: be possible. Thereupon there would be nothing for it but
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Speaker 1: either surrender or a bolt in the night to positions
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Speaker 1: in the rear, a bolt that might be hotly followed
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Speaker 1: if it were deferred too late, probably between contiguous nations
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Speaker 1: that have mastered the art of war, instead of the
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Speaker 1: pouring clouds of cavalry of the old dispensation. This will
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Speaker 1: be the opening phase of the struggle, a vast duel
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Speaker 1: all along the frontier, between groups of skilled marksmen, continually
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Speaker 1: being relieved and refreshed. From the briar footnote, even along
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Speaker 1: such vast frontiers as the Russian and Austrian For example,
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Speaker 1: where m Bloch anticipates war will be begun with an
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Speaker 1: invasion of clouds of Russian cavalry into great cavalry battles.
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Speaker 1: I am inclined to think this deadlock of essentially defensive
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Speaker 1: marksmen may still be the more probable thing. Small bodies
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Speaker 1: of sightlist riflemen would rush forward to meet the advancing
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Speaker 1: clouds of cavalry, would drop into visible ambushes and announce
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Speaker 1: their presence in unknown numbers with carefully aimed shots difficult
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Speaker 1: to locate. A small number of such men could always
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Speaker 1: begin their fight with a surprise at the most advantageous moment,
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Speaker 1: and they would be able to make themselves very deadly
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Speaker 1: against a comparatively powerful frontal attack.
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Speaker 2: If at last the attack.
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Speaker 1: Were driven home before supports came up to the defenders,
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Speaker 1: they would still be able to cycle away comparatively immune.
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Speaker 2: To attempt.
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Speaker 1: Even very wide flanking movements against such a snatched position
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Speaker 1: would be simply to run risks of blundering. Upon similar ambushes.
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Speaker 1: The clouds of cavalry would have to spread into thin
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Speaker 1: lines at last and go forward with the rifle. Invading
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Speaker 1: clouds of cyclists would be in no better case, a
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Speaker 1: conflict of cyclists against cyclists over a country too spacious
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Speaker 1: for unbroken lines would still, i think, leave the struggle
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Speaker 1: essentially unchanged. The advance of small, unsupported bodies would be
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Speaker 1: the wildest and most unprofitable adventure. Every advance would have
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Speaker 1: to be made behind a screen of scouts, and given
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Speaker 1: a practical equality in the numbers and manhood of the
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Speaker 1: two forces, these screens would speedily become simply very attenuated lines.
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Speaker 1: End footnote. For a time, quite possibly, there will be
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Speaker 1: no definite army here or there. There will be no
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Speaker 1: controllable battle. There will be no great general in the
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Speaker 1: field at all. But somewhere far in the rear, the
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Speaker 1: central organizer will sit at the telephonic center of his
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Speaker 1: vast front, and he will strengthen, hear and feed there,
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Speaker 1: and watch, watch, perpetually the pressure, the incessant, remorseless pressure
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Speaker 1: that is seeking to wear down his countervailing thrust. Behind
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Speaker 1: the thin firing line that is actually engaged, the country
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Speaker 1: for many miles will be rapidly cleared and devoted to
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Speaker 1: the business of war. Big machines will be at work
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Speaker 1: making second, third, and fourth lines of trenches that may
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Speaker 1: be needed if presently the firing line is forced back,
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Speaker 1: spreading out traverse paths for the swift lateral movement of
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Speaker 1: the cyclists, who will be in perpetual alertness to relieve
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Speaker 1: sudden local pressures. And all along those great motor roads
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Speaker 1: are first anticipations sketched. There will be a vast and
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Speaker 1: rapid shifting to and fro of big and very long
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Speaker 1: range guns. These guns will probably be fought with the
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Speaker 1: help of balloons. The latter will hang above the firing
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Speaker 1: line all along the front, incessantly ascending and withdrawn. They
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Speaker 1: will be continually determining the distribution of the antagonist's forces,
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Speaker 1: directing the fire of continually shifting great guns upon the
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Speaker 1: apparatus and supports in the rear of his fighting line,
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Speaker 1: forecasting his night plans, and seeking some tactical or strategic
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Speaker 1: weakness in that sinewy line of battle. It will be
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Speaker 1: evident that such warfare as this inevitable precision of gun
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Speaker 1: and rifle forces upon humanity, will become less and less
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Speaker 1: dramatic as a whole, more and more as a whole,
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Speaker 1: a monstrous thrust and pressure of people against people, No
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Speaker 1: dramatic little general spouting his troops into the proper hysterics
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Speaker 1: for charging. No prancing merely brave officers, no reckless gallantry
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Speaker 1: or invincible stubbornness of men will suffice for the commander
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Speaker 1: in chief on a picturesque horse, sentimentally watching his boys
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Speaker 1: march past death or glory. In battalions, there will have
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Speaker 1: to be a loyal staff of men, working simply, earnestly
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Speaker 1: and subtly to keep the front tight. And at the front,
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Speaker 1: every little isolated company of men will have to be
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Speaker 1: a council of war, a little conspiracy under the able man,
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Speaker 1: its captain, as keen and individual as a football team,
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Speaker 1: conspiring against the scarcely seen company of the foe over yonder.
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Speaker 1: The battalion commander will be replaced in effect by the
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Speaker 1: organizer of the balloons and guns, by which his few
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Speaker 1: hundreds of splendid individuals will be guided and read enforced.
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Speaker 1: In the place of hundreds of thousands of more or
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Speaker 1: less drunken and untrained young men marching into battle, muddle headed, sentimental, dangerous,
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Speaker 1: and futile hobbledehoys, there will be thousands of sober men,
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Speaker 1: braced up to their highest possibilities, intensely doing their best.
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Speaker 1: In the place of charging battalions, shattering impacts of squadrons,
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Speaker 1: and wide harvest fields of death, there will be hundreds
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Speaker 1: of little rifle battles fought up to the hilt, Gallant
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Speaker 1: dashes here, night surprises, there, the sudden, sinister, faint gleam
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Speaker 1: of nocturnal bayonets, brilliant guesses that will drop catastrophic shell
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Speaker 1: and death over hills and forests, suddenly into carelessly exposed
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Speaker 1: masses of men for eight miles on either side of
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Speaker 1: the firing lines, whose fire will probably never altogether die away.
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Speaker 1: While the war lasts, men will live and eat and
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Speaker 1: sleep under the imminence of unanticipated death. Such will be
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Speaker 1: the opening phase of the war that is speedily to come.
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Speaker 1: And behind the thin firing line on either side, a
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Speaker 1: vast multitude of people.
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Speaker 2: Will be at work.
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Speaker 1: Indeed, the whole mass of the efficients in the state
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Speaker 1: will have to be at work, and most of them
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Speaker 1: will be simply at the same work or similar work
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Speaker 1: to that done in peace time, only now as combatants
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Speaker 1: upon the lines of communication, the organized staffs of the
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Speaker 1: big road managements, now become a part of the military scheme,
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Speaker 1: will be deporting women and children and feeble people, and
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Speaker 1: bringing up supplies and supports. The doctors will be dropping
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Speaker 1: from their civil duties into pre appointed official places, directing
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Speaker 1: the feeding and treatment of the shifting masses of people,
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Speaker 1: and guarding the valuable manhood of the fighting apparatus most
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Speaker 1: sedulously from disease.
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Speaker 2: Footnote.
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Speaker 1: So far pestilence has been a feature of almost every
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Speaker 1: sustained war in the world. But there is really no
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Speaker 1: reason whatever why it should be so. There is no reason, indeed,
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Speaker 1: why a soul or upon active service on the victorious side,
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Speaker 1: should go without a night's rest or miss a meal.
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Speaker 1: If he does, there is muddle and want of foresight somewhere,
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Speaker 1: and that our hypothesis excludes.
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Speaker 2: End the footnote.
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Speaker 1: The engineers will be entrenching and bringing up a vast
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Speaker 1: variety of complicated and ingenious apparatus designed to surprise and
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Speaker 1: inconvenience the enemy in novel ways. The dealers in food
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Speaker 1: and clothing, the manufacturers of all sorts of necessary stuff,
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Speaker 1: will be converted by the mere declaration of war into
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Speaker 1: public servants. A practical realization of socialistic conceptions will quite
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Speaker 1: inevitably be forced upon the fighting state. The state that
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Speaker 1: has not incorporated with its fighting organization, all its able
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Speaker 1: bodied manhood, and all its material substance, its roads, vehicles, engines, foundries,
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Speaker 1: and all its resources of food and clothing. The state which,
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Speaker 1: at the outbreak of war has to bargain with railway
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Speaker 1: and shipping companies, replace experienced station masters by inexperienced officers,
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Speaker 1: and haggle against alien interests for every sort of supply,
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Speaker 1: will be at an overwhelming disadvantage against a state which
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Speaker 1: has emerged from the social confusion of the present time,
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Speaker 1: got rid of every vestige of our present distinction between
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Speaker 1: official and governed, and organized every element in its being.
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Speaker 1: I imagine that in this ideal war, as compared with
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Speaker 1: the war of today, there will be a very considerable
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Speaker 1: restriction of the rights of the non combatant. A large
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Speaker 1: part of existing international law involves a curious implication a
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Speaker 1: distinction between the belligerent government and its accredited agents in
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Speaker 1: warfare and the general body of its subjects.
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Speaker 2: There is a.
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Speaker 1: Disposition to treat the belligerent government, in spite of the
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Speaker 1: democratic status of many states, as not fully representing its people,
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Speaker 1: To establish a sort of world citizenship in the common
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Speaker 1: mass outside the official and military class protection of the
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Speaker 1: non combatant and his property comes at lane last. In theory,
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Speaker 1: at least with an immeasurable distance of notice boards, combatants
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Speaker 1: are requested to keep off the grass. This disposition I
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Speaker 1: abscribe to a recognition of that obsolescence and inadequacy of
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Speaker 1: the formal organization of states, which has already been discussed
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Speaker 1: in this book. It was a disposition that was strongest
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Speaker 1: perhaps in the earliest decades of the nineteenth century, and
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Speaker 1: stronger now than in the steady and irresistible course of
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Speaker 1: strenuous and universal military preparation.
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Speaker 2: It is likely to be in the future.
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Speaker 1: In our imaginary twentieth century state organized primarily for war,
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Speaker 1: this tendency to differentiate a non combatant mass in the
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Speaker 1: fighting state will certainly not be respected. The state will
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Speaker 1: be organized as a whole to fight as a whole.
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Speaker 1: It will have triumphantly asserted the universal duty of its citizens.
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Speaker 1: The military force will be a much ampler organization than
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Speaker 1: the army of to day. It will be not simply
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Speaker 1: the fists, but the body and brain of the land.
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Speaker 1: The whole apparatus, the whole staff engaged in internal communication,
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Speaker 1: for example, may conceivably not be state property and a
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Speaker 1: state service. But if it is not, it will assuredly
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Speaker 1: be as a whole organized as a volunteer force that
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Speaker 1: may instantly become a part of the machinery of defense
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Speaker 1: or regression at the outbreak of war.
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Speaker 2: Footnote.
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Speaker 1: Lady Maude Rolston, in her very interesting Yeoman Service, complains
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Speaker 1: of the boors killing an engine driver during an attack
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Speaker 1: on a train at Kroonstadt, which was, she writes, an
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Speaker 1: abominable action, as he is, in law a non combatant.
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Speaker 1: The implicit assumption of this complaint would cover the engineers
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Speaker 1: of an ironclad or the guides of a night attack, everybody,
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Speaker 1: in fact who was not positively weapon in hand.
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Speaker 2: End footnote.
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Speaker 1: The men may very conceivably not have a uniform, for
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Speaker 1: military uniforms are simply one aspect of this curious and
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Speaker 1: transitory phase of MISTAS restriction.
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Speaker 2: But they will have their.
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Speaker 1: Orders and their universal plan. As the bells ring and
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Speaker 1: the recording telephones click into every house the news that
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Speaker 1: war has come. There will be no running to and
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Speaker 1: fro upon the public ways, no balling upon the moving
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Speaker 1: platforms of the general urban nuclei, no crowds of silly, useless,
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Speaker 1: able bodied people, gaping at inflammatory transparencies outside the offices
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Speaker 1: of sensational papers. Because the egregious idiots in control of
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Speaker 1: affairs have found them no better employment. Every man will
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Speaker 1: be soberly and intelligently setting about a particular thing he.
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Speaker 2: Has to do.
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Speaker 1: Even the rich shareholding sort of person, the hereditary mortgage
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Speaker 1: of society, will be given something to do, and if
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Speaker 1: he has learned nothing else, he will serve to tie
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Speaker 1: up parcels of ammunition or pack army sausages. Very probably
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Speaker 1: the best of such people, and of the speculative class,
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Speaker 1: will have qualified as cyclist marksmen for the front. Some
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Speaker 1: of them may even have devoted the leisure of peace
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Speaker 1: to military studies, and may be prepared with novel weapons.
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Speaker 1: Recruiting among the working classes, or more properly speaking, among
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Speaker 1: the people of the abyss, will have dwindled to the
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Speaker 1: vanishing point. People who are no good for peace purposes
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Speaker 1: are not likely to be any good in such a
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Speaker 1: grave and complicated.
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Speaker 2: Business as modern war.
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Speaker 1: The spontaneous traffic of the roads and peace will fall
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Speaker 1: now into two streams, one of women and children coming
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Speaker 1: quietly and comfortably out of danger, the other of men
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Speaker 1: and material going up to the front. There will be
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Speaker 1: no panics, no hardships, because everything will have been amply
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Speaker 1: pre arranged. We are dealing with an ideal state. Quietly
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Speaker 1: and tremendously, that state will have gripped its adversary and
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Speaker 1: tightened its muscles. That is all now. The strategy of
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Speaker 1: this new sort of war in its opening phase will
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Speaker 1: consist mainly in very rapid movements of guns and men
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Speaker 1: behind that thin screen of marksmen, in order to deal
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Speaker 1: suddenly and unexpectedly some form blow, to snatch at some
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Speaker 1: position into which guns and men may be thrust, to
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Speaker 1: outflank and turn the advantage of the ground against some
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Speaker 1: portion of the enemy's line. The game will be largely
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Speaker 1: to crowd and crumple that line, to stretch it over
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Speaker 1: an arc to the breaking point, to secure a position
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Speaker 1: from which to shell and destroy its supports and provisions,
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Speaker 1: and to capture or destroy its guns and apparatus, and
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Speaker 1: so tear it away from some town or arsenal it
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Speaker 1: has covered. And a factor of primary importance in this
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Speaker 1: warfare because of the importance of seeing the board, A
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Speaker 1: factor which will be enormously stimulated to develop in the
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Speaker 1: future will be the aerial factor. Already we have seen
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Speaker 1: the captive balloon as an incidental accessory of considerable importance
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Speaker 1: even in the wild country warfare of South Africa. In
21:51
Speaker 1: the warfare that will go on in the highly organized
21:53
Speaker 1: European states of the opening century, the special military balloon,
21:57
Speaker 1: used in conjunction with guns conceive of small caliber but
22:01
Speaker 1: of enormous length and range, will play a part of
22:04
Speaker 1: quite primary importance. These guns will be carried on vast
22:08
Speaker 1: mechanical carriages, possibly with wheels of such a size as
22:12
Speaker 1: will enable them to traverse almost all sorts of ground.
22:16
Speaker 1: Footnote experiments will probably be made in the direction of
22:20
Speaker 1: armored guns, armored searchlight carriers, and armored shelters for men
22:24
Speaker 1: that will admit of being pushed forward over a rifle
22:26
Speaker 1: swept ground, to such possibilities, to possibilities even of a
22:31
Speaker 1: sort of land iron clad. My inductive reasoning inclines the
22:35
Speaker 1: armored train seems indeed a distinct beginning of this sort
22:38
Speaker 1: of thing. But my imagination proffers nothing but a vision
22:41
Speaker 1: of wheels smashed by shells, iron tortoises, gallantly rushed by
22:45
Speaker 1: hidden men, and unhappy marksmen and engineers being shot at
22:49
Speaker 1: as they bolt from some such monster overset. The fact
22:52
Speaker 1: of it is, I detest and fear these thick, slow,
22:55
Speaker 1: essentially defensive methods, either for land or sea fighting. They
23:00
Speaker 1: believe invincibly that the side that can go fastest and
23:02
Speaker 1: hit hardest will always win with or without, or in
23:06
Speaker 1: spite of massive defenses, and no ingenuity in devising the
23:11
Speaker 1: massive defense will shake that belief end footnote. The aeronauts,
23:16
Speaker 1: provided with large scale maps of the hostile country will
23:19
Speaker 1: mark down to the gunners below the precise point upon
23:23
Speaker 1: which to direct their fire, and over hill and dale
23:26
Speaker 1: the shell will fly ten miles, it may be to
23:29
Speaker 1: its billet, camp, massing, night attack or advancing gun. Great
23:35
Speaker 1: multitudes of balloons will be the argus eyes of the
23:38
Speaker 1: entire military organism, stalked eyes with a telephonic nerve in
23:43
Speaker 1: each stalk. And at night they will sweep the country
23:46
Speaker 1: with search lights and come soaring before the wind with
23:49
Speaker 1: hanging flares. Certainly they will be steerable. Moreover, when the
23:54
Speaker 1: wind admits, they will be freely moving, steerable balloons, wagging
23:57
Speaker 1: little flags to their friends below. And so far as
24:01
Speaker 1: the resources of the men on the ground go, the
24:03
Speaker 1: balloons will be almost invulnerable. The mere perforation of balloons
24:08
Speaker 1: with shot does them little harm. And the possibility of
24:11
Speaker 1: hitting a balloon that is drifting about at a practically
24:14
Speaker 1: unascertainable distance and height so precisely as to blow it
24:18
Speaker 1: to pieces with a timed shell, and to do this
24:21
Speaker 1: in the little time before it is able to give
24:23
Speaker 1: simple and precise instructions as to your range and position
24:26
Speaker 1: to the unseen gun as it directs, is certainly one
24:29
Speaker 1: of the most difficult and trying undertakings for an artillery
24:32
Speaker 1: man that one can well imagine. I am inclined to
24:36
Speaker 1: think that the many considerations against a successful attack on
24:39
Speaker 1: balloons from the ground will enormously stimulate enterprise and invention
24:43
Speaker 1: in the direction of dirigible aerial devices that can fight.
24:47
Speaker 1: Few people I fancy who know the work of Langley, Lilienthal, Pilcher,
24:52
Speaker 1: Maxim and Chanout, but will be inclined to believe that
24:55
Speaker 1: long before the year a d. Two thousand, and very
24:58
Speaker 1: probably before nineteen fifty, a successful aeroplane will have soared
25:02
Speaker 1: and come home safe and sound. Directly that as accomplished,
25:06
Speaker 1: the new invention will be most assuredly applied to war.
25:11
Speaker 2: The nature of the things.
25:12
Speaker 1: That will ultimately fight in the sky is a matter
25:15
Speaker 1: for curious speculation. We begin with the captive balloon, against
25:20
Speaker 1: that the navigable balloon will presently operate. I am inclined
25:24
Speaker 1: to think the practicable navigable balloon will be first attained
25:28
Speaker 1: by the use of a device already employed by nature.
25:31
Speaker 1: In the swimming bladder of fishes, this is a closed
25:34
Speaker 1: gas bag that can be contracted or expanded. If a
25:38
Speaker 1: gas bag of thin, strong, practically impervious substance could be
25:42
Speaker 1: enclosed in a net of closely interlaced fibers interlaced, for example,
25:46
Speaker 1: on a pattern of the muscles of the bladder in mammals,
25:49
Speaker 1: the ends of these fibers might be wound and unwound,
25:52
Speaker 1: and the effect of contractility attained. A row of such
25:56
Speaker 1: contractile balloons hung over a long car which was horizontally
26:01
Speaker 1: extended into wings would not only allow that car to
26:04
Speaker 1: rise and fall at will, but if the balloon at
26:07
Speaker 1: one end were contracted and at the other end expanded,
26:10
Speaker 1: and the intermediate ones allowed to assume intermediate conditions, the
26:14
Speaker 1: former end would drop. The expanded wings would be brought
26:17
Speaker 1: into a slanting condition. Over a smaller area of supporting air,
26:21
Speaker 1: and the whole apparatus would tend to glide downwards in
26:25
Speaker 1: that direction.
26:26
Speaker 2: The projection of a.
26:27
Speaker 1: Small vertical plane upon either side would make the gliding
26:30
Speaker 1: mass rotate in a descending spiral, and so we have
26:34
Speaker 1: all the elements of a controllable flight. Such an affair
26:37
Speaker 1: would be difficult to overset. It would be able to
26:40
Speaker 1: beat up even in a fair wind, and then it
26:42
Speaker 1: would be able to contract its bladders and fall down
26:45
Speaker 1: a long slant in any direction. From some such crude
26:49
Speaker 1: beginnings of form like a soaring elongated, flat brimmed hat
26:53
Speaker 1: might grow, and the possibilities of adding an engine driven
26:56
Speaker 1: screw are obvious enough. It is difficult to see how
27:01
Speaker 1: such a contrivance could carry guns of any caliber, unless
27:05
Speaker 1: they fired from the rear in the line of flight.
27:07
Speaker 1: The problem of recoil becomes a very difficult one.
27:10
Speaker 2: In aerial tactics.
27:11
Speaker 1: It would probably have at most a small machine gun
27:14
Speaker 1: or so, which might fire an explosive shell at the
27:17
Speaker 1: balloons of the enemy, or kill the aeronauts.
27:19
Speaker 2: With distributed bullets.
27:21
Speaker 1: The thing would be a sort of air shark, and
27:24
Speaker 1: one may even venture to picture something of the struggle
27:26
Speaker 1: the deadlocked marksmen of nineteen fifty lying warily in their
27:30
Speaker 1: rifle pits, will see one conceives them at first, each
27:34
Speaker 1: little hall with its watchful, well equipped couple of assassins
27:38
Speaker 1: turning up their eyes in expectation. The wind is with
27:41
Speaker 1: our enemy, and his captive balloons have been disagreeably overhead
27:45
Speaker 1: all through the hot morning. His big guns have suddenly
27:49
Speaker 1: become nervously active. Then a little murmur along the pits
27:53
Speaker 1: and trenches, and from somewhere over behind us, this air
27:56
Speaker 1: shark drives up the sky. The enemy's balloons splutter a
28:00
Speaker 1: little retract and go rushing down, and we send a
28:04
Speaker 1: spray of bullets as they drop. Then against our aerostat,
28:07
Speaker 1: and with the wind driving them clean overhead of us,
28:10
Speaker 1: come the antagonistic flying machines. I incline to imagine. There
28:15
Speaker 1: will be a steel prow with a cutting edge at
28:18
Speaker 1: either end of the sort of aerostat I foresee, and
28:21
Speaker 1: conceivably this aerial ram will be the most important weapon
28:24
Speaker 1: of the affair. When operating against balloons. Such a fighting
28:29
Speaker 1: machine will rush up the air as swiftly as possible,
28:32
Speaker 1: and then with a rapid contraction of its bladders fling
28:35
Speaker 1: itself like a knife at the sinking war balloon of
28:38
Speaker 1: the foe. Down, down, down, through a vast alert tension
28:42
Speaker 1: of flight down, it will swoop, and if it swoop
28:46
Speaker 1: is successful, slash explosively. At last, through a suffocating moment.
28:51
Speaker 1: Rifles will crack, ropes, tear and snap. They will be
28:55
Speaker 1: erending and shouting, a great thud of liberated gas, and
28:59
Speaker 1: perhaps a flare. Quite certainly, those flying machines will carry
29:03
Speaker 1: folded parachutes, and the last phase of many a struggle
29:06
Speaker 1: will be the desperate leap of the aeronauts with these
29:09
Speaker 1: in hand, to snatch one last chance of life out
29:12
Speaker 1: of a mass of crumpling, fallen wreckage.
29:16
Speaker 2: But in such a fight.
29:17
Speaker 1: Between flying machine and flying machine, as we are trying
29:20
Speaker 1: to picture, it will be a fight of hawks, complicated by.
29:24
Speaker 2: Bullets and little shells.
29:26
Speaker 1: They will rush up and up to get the pitch
29:28
Speaker 1: of one another, until the aeronauts sob and sicken with
29:32
Speaker 1: the rarefied air, and the blood comes to eyes and nails.
29:36
Speaker 1: The marksmen below will strain at last, eyes under hands,
29:39
Speaker 1: to see the circling battle at dwindles and the zenith.
29:43
Speaker 1: Then perhaps a wild adventurous dropping of one close beneath
29:47
Speaker 1: the other, an attempt to stoop, the sudden splutter of guns,
29:51
Speaker 1: a tilting up or down, a disengagement. What will have happened?
29:56
Speaker 1: One combatant, perhaps will heal lamely earthward dropping, dropping with
30:00
Speaker 1: half its bladders, burst or shot away. The other circles
30:03
Speaker 1: down in pursuit. What are they doing? Our marksmen will
30:06
Speaker 1: snatch at their field glasses tremulously anxious.
30:10
Speaker 2: Is that a white flag? Or no?
30:12
Speaker 1: If they drop now we ave em. But the duel
30:15
Speaker 1: will be the rarer thing. In any affair of ramming,
30:18
Speaker 1: there is an enormous advantage for the side that can
30:21
Speaker 1: contrive anywhere in the field of action to set two
30:24
Speaker 1: vessels at one. The mere ascent of one flying ram
30:28
Speaker 1: from one side will assuredly slip the leashes of two
30:31
Speaker 1: on the other. Until the maneuvering squadrons may be as
30:35
Speaker 1: thick as starlings in October. They will wheel and mount,
30:39
Speaker 1: they will spread and close. They will be elaborate maneuvers
30:42
Speaker 1: for the advantage of the wind. There will be sudden
30:45
Speaker 1: drops to the shelter of entrenched guns. The actual impact
30:49
Speaker 1: of battle will be an affair of moments They will
30:52
Speaker 1: be awful moments, but not more terrible, not more exacting
30:56
Speaker 1: of manhood, than the moments that will come to men
30:59
Speaker 1: when there is, and it has not as yet happened
31:01
Speaker 1: on this earth, equal fighting between properly manned and equipped
31:05
Speaker 1: iron clads at sea and the well bred young gentlemen
31:09
Speaker 1: of means who are privileged to officer the British Army
31:13
Speaker 1: nowadays will be no more good at this sort of
31:15
Speaker 1: thing than they are at controversial theology, or electrical engineering,
31:20
Speaker 1: or anything else that demands a well exercised brain. Once
31:24
Speaker 1: the command of the air is obtained by one of
31:27
Speaker 1: the contending armies, the war must become a conflict between
31:31
Speaker 1: a seeing host and one that is blind.
31:34
Speaker 2: The victor in that aerial struggle.
31:36
Speaker 1: Will tower with pitilessly watchful eyes over his adversary, will
31:40
Speaker 1: concentrate his guns and all his strength unobserved, will mark
31:44
Speaker 1: all his adversaries roads and communications, and sweep them with sudden,
31:49
Speaker 1: incredible disasters of shot and shell. The moral effect of
31:53
Speaker 1: this predominance will be enormous all over the losing country,
31:56
Speaker 1: not simply at his frontier, but everywhere. The victor will
32:00
Speaker 1: saw everybody, everywhere, will be perpetually and constantly looking up
32:05
Speaker 1: with a sense of loss and insecurity, with a vague
32:09
Speaker 1: stress of painful anticipations. By day, the victor's aeroplanes will
32:14
Speaker 1: sweep down upon the apparatus of all sorts in the
32:17
Speaker 1: adversary's rear, and will drop explosives and incendiary matters upon
32:21
Speaker 1: them footnote, or in deference to the rules of war,
32:25
Speaker 1: fire them out of guns of trivial carrying power end footnote,
32:30
Speaker 1: so that no apparatus or camp or shelter will any
32:34
Speaker 1: longer be safe. At night, his high floating searchlights will
32:38
Speaker 1: go to and fro and discover and check every desperate
32:42
Speaker 1: attempt to relieve or feed the exhausted marksmen of the
32:45
Speaker 1: fighting line. The phase of tension will pass, that weakening
32:49
Speaker 1: opposition will give, and the war, from a state of
32:52
Speaker 1: mutual pressure and petty combat will develop into the collapse
32:55
Speaker 1: of the defensive lines. A general advance will occur under
32:59
Speaker 1: the aerial vs an iron clad road fighting machines may
33:03
Speaker 1: perhaps play a considerable part in this, and the enemy's
33:06
Speaker 1: line of marksmen will be driven back or starved into surrender,
33:10
Speaker 1: or broken up and hunted down. As the superiority of
33:14
Speaker 1: the attack becomes week by week more and more evident.
33:18
Speaker 1: Its assaults will become more dashing and far reaching.
33:21
Speaker 2: Under the moonlight and.
33:22
Speaker 1: The watching balloons, there will be swift, noiseless rushes of cycles,
33:26
Speaker 1: precipitate dismounts, and the never to be quite abandoned bayonet
33:30
Speaker 1: will play its part. And now men on the losing
33:33
Speaker 1: side will thank God for the reprieve of a pitiless wind,
33:37
Speaker 1: for lightning, thunder and rain, for any elemental disorder that
33:41
Speaker 1: will for a moment lift the descending scale. Then under
33:45
Speaker 1: banks of fog and cloud, the victorious advance will pause
33:49
Speaker 1: and grow peeringly, watchful and nervous, and mud stained. Desperate
33:54
Speaker 1: men will go splashing forward into an elemental blackness, rain
33:58
Speaker 1: or snow, like a benediction of their faces, blessing the
34:01
Speaker 1: primordial savagery of nature that can still set aside the
34:05
Speaker 1: wisest devices of men, and give the unthrifty, one last
34:09
Speaker 1: desperate chance to get their own again or die. End
34:14
Speaker 1: of chapter six, A recording by John Trevivick