starvation and exposure in the great treks away from invading armies. But now we are to have killing by wholesale instead of retail; and killing, unless I miss my guess, aimed directly at civilian populations.
So much for civilian lives in “the next war.” What about soldier lives, when we come to kill by wholesale instead of by retail? The answer involves a discussion of military weapons, tactics and strategy in “the next war.”
I have not yet discussed the tank. Britain contributed that improvement, as Germany contributed gas. It involved the combination of one device almost as old as warfare—armor—with two devices borrowed from the arts of peace—the gasolene engine and the caterpillar wheel. It was an instrument of the offensive in that it gave men and guns greater mobility; it was defensive in that it protected soldiers and their weapons as they advanced into the enemy’s territory. The British employed their tanks, as the Germans their gas, timidly and experimentally in the beginning. The wholesale use of tanks at the Somme in 1916 would have won the war. The munition makers, in the two years between the Somme and the Armistice, somewhat improved this new weapon. The early types could advance only four or five miles an hour over ordinary rough ground—just the pace of a man at a brisk walk. The improved types could make ten or twelve miles an hour—practically, the speed of cavalry in
