Littell's Living Age/Volume 130/Issue 1674/Remarks on Modern Warfare
From Fraser's Magazine.
REMARKS ON MODERN WARFARE.
BY A MILITARY OFFICER.
It may not be altogether unprofitable, even in these peaceful times (how long will they last?), to glance for a moment at modern warfare. It is not proposed to approach the subject technically; but simply to compare, from certain points of view, the warfare of the present with that of the past, and possibly to draw one or two conclusions from the comparison. There exists a certain class of theorists who hail every fresh invention for the slaughter of mankind with the remark: "I am delighted to hear of it; for the more horrible you make war, the sooner you will put an end to it."
Without stopping to question the correctness of this theory, let us proceed to inquire whether all the murderous science which has lately been expended on war has in reality succeeded in making it more horrible; and, if so, for whom? For in this question there are two classes to be considered — the soldier, and the civilian whose country becomes the theatre of war.
Let us first consider the case of the soldier. As every one is aware, the chief feature in the military history of the past twenty years has been the vast improvements effected in firearms. We have passed, by successive stages, from smooth-bore muskets of short range, inaccurate firing, and slow loading, to rifles of long range, great accuracy, and rapid firing. In artillery the advance has been proportionate. Every one knows this, but everyone does not know that — strange though it may seem — the result of these improvements has been precisely the reverse of what was intended and what was anticipated; or, in other words, the proportion of killed and wounded was far greater with the old-fashioned weapons than it is at the present day. In proof of this the following facts, which are taken principally from a table in the history of the campaign in Bohemia in 1866, by Col. Cooke, R.E., may be quoted.
At the battle of Talavera (1809) the loss in killed and wounded was one-eighth of those engaged. At Austerlitz (1805) it was one-seventh. At Malplaquet (1709), at Prague (1759), and at Jena (1806) it was one-sixth. At Friedland (1807) and at Waterloo (1815) one-fifth. At Marengo (1800) it amounted to one-fourth. At Salamanca (1812) out of ninety thousand combatants thirty thousand were killed and wounded. At Borodino (1812) out of two hundred and fifty thousand, eighty thousand fell on the two sides. At Leipsic (1813) the French sustained a loss of one-third of their total effective. At Preussich-Eylau (1807) fifty-five thousand were killed and wounded out of a combined total of one hundred and sixty thousand combatants, giving a loss of more than one-third; while at Zorndorf (1758), the most murderous battle which history records in modern times, out of eighty-two thousand Russian and Prussian troops engaged, thirty-two thousand eight hundred were stretched upon the field at the close of the day.
Let us now come to more recent times. The first great battle in which rifled fire arms were used was Solferino (1859), and when the war broke out it was confidently predicted that the effects of the new weapon would be frightful; but the loss actually fell to one-eleventh of those engaged. At Königgrätz, where, in addition to rifled weapons, one side was armed with breechloaders, the actual loss was further diminished to one-fifteenth. Finally we come to the last war, in which the proportions were, Worth one-eleventh, Gravelotte one-twelfth, and Sedan one-tenth. These figures may surprise many who, not unnaturally, imagined that improved weapons entailed increased slaughter. It is not intended to imply that battles are not still sanguinary, but it is incontestable that they are much less so than they were. But it is not merely on the battle-field that the soldier's risk is now diminished, but throughout the whole campaign. Railways afford a more adequate supply of medical and other necessaries to the front, and a more rapid transfer of the sick and wounded to their permanent hospitals. The labors of the Geneva Society have materially conduced to the same end. Buildings and tents covered by the red cross are held to be sacred from fire; rules are laid down for the treatment of prisoners of war; explosive bullets are also forbidden; and to such a length has this spirit of mitigating the horrors of war extended that nothing but the esprit de corps of those who wield the lance has saved the "queen of weapons" from disestablishment. So much for the soldier in time of war. It only remains to remark that, if successful, he is rewarded and honored; if defeated, he obtains at least sympathy; and if wounded, a pension.
But how does the case stand for the civilian whose home happens to be situated in the theatre of war? What has been done for him? Absolutely nothing. The enormous area of country occupied by the vast numbers of men and horses which constitute modern armies, and the rapidity of their movements, combine to render their presence in an invaded country more than ever a national calamity; and the position of the unfortunate civilians, as a body, far from improving, becomes worse and worse. The non-combatant must stand by and see his house burnt, or turned into a barrack. His crops are trampled down, his orchards felled, his cattle slaughtered, his horses and waggons impressed, his very food requisitioned, and himself, family, and belongings turned destitute on the world. No surgeon is waiting to tend him if sick or, as not unfrequently happens, wounded. All the available care, energy, and attention of his government are concentrated on the army, while he must suffer unnoticed and uncared for. After the storm of war has passed, some inadequate charity, and some tardy compensation from the government which has been unable to defend him, begins to flow in; but these are as mere raindrops in the vast desert of misery; and, indeed, what money, what gifts, what kindness can compensate him for such misfortunes? And the worst of it is that there is no remedy for him. So long as the possession of the capital or other large town is the great goal of the military race, so long must armies traverse the country to reach it Thus we see that while everything is done to preserve the life, mitigate the sufferings, and supply the wants of the soldier, no thought is given to the civilian. In war everything must give way to military considerations, and every soldier's life is of definite value.
It has already been shown how the proportion of killed and wounded becomes less as science advances; and, as far as the light of history is shed on war, the diminution has indeed been great. We have seen how the slaughter at Zorndorf exceeded that of Sedan; and, according to history, Zorndorf was child's play to Cressy, where the French loss is stated to have been, in killed alone, eleven princes, one thousand two hundred knights, and thirty thousand men.[1] This again is exceeded at Cannæ, where, out of an army of eighty thousand Romans, fifty thousand were left on the field when the battle was over;[2] and, to take another instance from the same war, the battle of the Metaurus, where an army hastening to reinforce Hannibal was not merely defeated, but destroyed.
Truly war was butchery in those days! But why, the non-professional reader may ask, are battles less proportionately sanguinary than they were, in spite of modern improvements? Because every improvement made in weapons from the earliest recorded history of war has entailed corresponding alterations in tactics to meet it, and obviate, as far as possible, its effects. Instead of standing in massive columns, or in line with close ranks two and three deep, and reserving their fire until they could "see the whites of their enemy's eyes," troops now engage at longer distances, in loose order, and take advantage of whatever cover is to be found.
But it is not merely on the battle-field, as already observed, but throughout the campaign, that the soldier's life is now more jealously guarded. The noble efforts made by charitable societies have been mentioned; but other and far more powerful agencies are at work to do more than mitigate, to prevent. The great social feature of the present day is "pace;" everything goes ahead, and armies must conform to this rapid order of things. Accordingly military operations and results which used to occupy years are now compressed into months; it might almost be said, weeks. The war of 1859 was declared by Austria on April 26; the first action, Montebello, was fought on May 19; and the war was finished at Solferino on July 24. In 1866 the Prussians virtually declared war by crossing the Austrian frontier on June 23, and in seven weeks the latter power was forced to come to terms at the very gates of her capital. Prussia received the French declaration of war on July 19, 1870. On September 2 France's last army in the field was destroyed at Sedan, and the last shots were fired on February 2, 1871. Here, then, we have at once an immense saving of life. The long delays, which meant, for the soldier, exposure to the weather and to sickness; the defective communications, entailing insufficient food; the slowly dragging campaign with all its privations and hardships — all these fertile sources of disease and death have vanished, or are vanishing. It is true that the French soldiers both in and out of Metz suffered terribly from want of proper food and supplies; but it must be remembered that their administration was exceptionally bad, and the very magnitude of their defects will prevent a repetition of them.
Let us, for comparison, take one or two instances from the wars of the first Napoleon. Here is the state of his army during the invasion of Russia in 1812, not after but before meeting the enemy otherwise than in small skirmishes: —
- From the want of magazines and the impossibility of conveying an adequate supply of provisions for so immense a host, disorders of every kind had accumulated in a frightful manner on the flanks and rear of the army. Neither bread nor spirits could be had; the flesh of overdriven animals and bad water constituted the sole subsistence of the soldiers . . . and before a great part of the army had even seen the enemy, it had undergone a loss greater than might have been expected from the most bloody campaign. When the stragglers and sick were added to the killed and wounded the total reached one hundred thousand.[3]
Again: Masséna entered Portugal in October 1810; spent weeks and weeks in futile examination of the lines of Torres Vedras; and recrossed into Spain on April 3, 1811, "having lost thirty thousand men by want, sickness, and the sword."[4] As the only action of any importance that occurred during the retreat was that of Barrosa, at which the French loss was under a thousand, the reader can estimate for himself what proportion of the total loss was due to "want and sickness."
These are but two instances out of many that might be quoted, but enough. Such protracted neglect and suffering would be impossible in these days, for the simple reason — if for no other — that the soldier is now much too expensive an article to be squandered in such a wholesale manner. Much, of course, remains to be done; but the attention which governments are now compelled to give to the subject, aided by the private efforts which the enthusiasm caused by the outbreak of war never fails to excite, will provide the necessary means and the power of properly applying them. The day seems to be approaching when the soldier of any country having any pretensions to be a military power may take the field, confident that, apart from the strain on his constitution arising from a short but arduous campaign, the only danger he will incur will be from his foeman's weapons. If he will only look back and compare his lot with that of his military ancestors he will think himself fortunate.
When we consider the position of the civilian, who may find his country the theatre of future wars, we wish we could think his prospects equally hopeful. It would be useless to attempt to give statistics of the losses inflicted on a country which is overrun by an invading army. Suffice it to say that the agricultural losses alone sustained by France in 1870-1 have been estimated at one hundred and seventy million pounds. It would be difficult enough to ascertain the loss in worldly goods represented by this vast sum; but who could calculate its equivalent in sorrow, misery, starvation, disease, and death in all its various and most fearful shapes? We cannot help thinking that the sufferings of the civilian in war call more loudly for sympathy than those of the soldier; but, unfortunately, there is none to hear. As long as the civilian is merely an accessory in the picture of which the soldier is the foreground, so long must he suffer comparatively unnoticed. A dead soldier is buried, a wounded one removed easily enough, their wants ere soon provided for; but a ruined and devastated home cannot be restored, and its scattered inhabitants collected in any appreciable time, perhaps never. Sometimes, too, the unhappy civilian, goaded to madness at the miseries inflicted on him, seizes arms and joins with the fury of despair in the defence of his village or farmhouse, as at Bazeilles and Chateaudun, thereby giving to his enemies a fresh handle, which they never fail to use, for increased exactions and further seventy. The brevity of modern campaigns, which have so materially benefited the soldier, produce no mitigation for the invaded country, for what is gained in time is lost in the numbers and rapidity of modern armies.
There seems to be absolutely no possibility of modifying the position of the inhabitants of an invaded country. All, then, that can be done is to confine the area of operations as much as possible; and we cannot help thinking that the tendency of modern warfare is in this direction — that nations will in future endeavor to fight their battles and finish their quarrels nearer to their frontiers than was formerly the case.
Time was when a country might be invaded and half of it overrun and occupied while the other half remained almost in ignorance; but we have changed all that. All parts of a civilized country are now so closely connected by commerce, travel, and intercommunication of every sort, intelligence is so rapidly and widely diffused, that when an invasion takes place every one knows, and what is more, every one feels. It has already been observed how terrible a visitation is the presence of a hostile army. Modern armies are not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn; they represent, in fact are, whole nations in arms. After the battle of Sedan, notwithstanding the heavy losses she had suffered in the campaign, Germany had eight hundred thousand men on French soil. A comparison will give some idea of the vastness of this host. On October 16, 1813, there were assembled for the battle of Leipsic the military strength of three empires and three kingdoms, yet the total capitation of the forces was less than one half of the number above mentioned.
The national character of modern warfare being admitted, a result once established will generally be decisive for the war in which it occurs; and should be considered so, for national superiority is of a kind that cannot be gainsaid or set aside. Austria saw this in 1866, and accepted the hard and bitter truth in time to save herself. It would have been well for France had she done the same. The triumph of Germany in 1870 was no mere military triumph, but a national triumph, due to causes in accordance with which nations rise and fall. What France wanted after Sedan was a head clear enough to perceive this, and a hand strong enough to apply the only remedy, peace at any price. The writing was on the wall, traced in characters of blood and fire, but there was no one to read it. The only effect of her protracted resistance was to place her more and more at the mercy of the conqueror, and to prolong almost indefinitely the period that must elapse before she can renew the struggle. The moral of this is, that nations should keep their armies on the principle of sudden expansion and mobilization, ready to throw every man, every horse, and every gun on the frontier, for there and there only should the battle be fought. And this is what is actually being done. The next war between two leading powers will probably see even the celerity of 1870 outstripped as regards preparation, and in the interests of the civilian it is to be hoped that the struggle may be fought at or near the frontier. Then, although the condition of those residing on the spot will be no better, the devastation will be confined to a smaller area. More than this it is at present impossible to hope for.