made him cadi in the western district of the city. In 819 he was transferred to Rosafa (Rusāfa) on the east side. His greatest work is the Kitāb ul-Maghāzi, or history of Mahomet’s campaigns.
The first third of the Kitāb ul-Maghāzi (one leaf missing) was published by A. von Kremer from a Damascus MS. (Calcutta, 1856). Sprenger in his Leben Muhammad’s used a British Museum MS. containing the first half, all but one leaf. J. Wellhausen published an abridged German translation from another British Museum MS. under the title Muhammad in Medina (Berlin, 1882).
Ascribed to Wāqidī, but probably written at the time of the Crusades to incite the Moslems against the Christians, are several works on the conquests of Islam. One of the best known is the Futūḥ ush-Shām, edited by W. Nassau Lees (Calcutta, 1854–1862; Cairo, 1865). M. J. de Goeje, in his Mémoires sur la conquête de la Syrie (Leiden, 1900), holds that this work is founded on that of Abu Hudhaifa ul-Bukhārī, which in turn is an edition of the real Wāqidī.
WAR (O. Eng. werre, Fr. guerre, of Teutonic origin; cf. O.H.G.
werran, to confound), the armed conflict of states, in which each
seeks to impose its will upon the other by force. War is the
opposite of Peace (q.v.), and is the subject of the military art.
In separate sections below the general principles of the art of
war are discussed, and the laws which have gradually become
accepted among civilized peoples for the regulation of its
conditions. The details concerning the history of individual wars,
and the various weapons and instruments of war, are given in
separate articles.
See Army, Navy, Conscription, Strategy, Tactics, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery, Engineers, Fortification, Coast Defence, Officers, Staff, Guards, Supply and Transport, Uniforms, Arms and Armour, Gun, Rifle, Pistol, Sword, Lance, Ordnance, Machine Guns, Submarine Mines, Torpedo, &c. The important wars are dealt with under the names commonly given to them; e.g. American Civil War, American War of Independence, American War of 1812, Crimean War, Dutch Wars, Franco-German War, French Revolutionary Wars, Great Rebellion, Greek War of Independence, Italian Wars, Napoleonic Campaigns, Peloponnesian War, Peninsular War, Punic Wars, Russo-Japanese War, Russo-Turkish Wars, Servo-Bulgarian War, Seven Weeks’ War, Seven Years’ War, Spanish-American War, Spanish Succession War, Thirty Years’ War. Important campaigns and battles are also separately treated (e.g. Waterloo, Trafalgar, Shenandoah Valley, Wilderness, Metz, &c.).
I. General Principles
It is not easy to determine whether industrial progress, improved organization, the spread of education or mechanical inventions have wrought the greater change in the military art. War is first and foremost a matter of movement; and as such it has been considerably affected by the Modern conditions. multiplication of good roads, the introduction of steam transport, and by the ease with which draught animals can be collected. In the second place, war is a matter of supply; and the large area of cultivation, the increase of live-stock, the vast trade in provisions, pouring the food-stuffs of one continent into another, have done much to lighten the inevitable difficulties of a campaign. In the third place, war is a matter of destruction; and while the weapons of armies have become more perfect and more durable, the modern substitutes for gunpowder have added largely to their destructive capacity. Fourthly, war is not merely a blind struggle between mobs of individuals, without guidance or coherence, but a conflict of well-organized masses, moving with a view to intelligent co-operation, acting under the impulse of a single will and directed against a definite objective. These masses, however, are seldom so closely concentrated that the impulse which sets them in motion can be promptly and easily communicated to each, nor can the right objective be selected without some knowledge of the enemy’s strength and dispositions. Means of intercommunication, therefore, as well as methods of observation, are of great importance; and with the telegraph, the telephone, visual signalling, balloons, airships and improved field-glasses, the armies of to-day, so far as regards the maintenance of connexion between different bodies of troops, and the diffusion, if not the acquiring, of information, are at a great advantage compared with those of the middle of the 19th century.
War, then, in some respects has been made much simpler. Armies are easier to move, to feed and to manœuvre. But in other respects this very simplicity has made the conduct of a campaign more difficult. Not only is the weapon wielded by the general less clumsy and more deadly than heretofore, less fragile and better balanced, but it acts with greater rapidity and has a far wider scope. In a strong and skilful hand it may be irresistible; in the grasp of a novice it is worse than useless. In former times, when war was a much slower process, and armies were less highly trained, mistakes at the outset were not necessarily fatal. Under modern conditions, the inexperienced commander will not be granted time in which to correct his deficiencies and give himself and his troops the needful practice. The idea of forging generals and soldiers under the hammer of war disappeared with the advent of “the nation in arms.” Military organization has become a science, studied both by statesmen and soldiers. The lessons of history have not been neglected. Previous to 1870, in one kingdom only was it recognized that intellect and education play a more prominent part in war than stamina and courage. Taught by the disasters of 1806, Prussia set herself to discover the surest means of escaping humiliation for the future. The shrewdest of her sons undertook the task. The nature of war was analysed until the secrets of success and failure were laid bare; and on these investigations a system of organization and of training was built up which, not only from a military, but from a political, and even an economical point of view, is the most striking product of the 19th century. The keynote of this system is that the best brains in the state shall be at the service of the war lord. None, therefore, but thoroughly competent soldiers are entrusted with the responsibility of command; and the education of the officer is as thorough, as systematic and as uniform as the education of the lawyer, the diplomatist and the doctor. In all ages the power of intellect has asserted itself in war. It was not courage and experience only that made Hannibal, Alexander and Caesar the greatest names of antiquity. Napoleon, Wellington and the Archduke Charles were certainly the best-educated soldiers of their time; while Lee, Jackson and Sherman probably knew more of war, before they made it, than any one else in the United States. But it was not until 1866 and 1870 that the preponderating influence of the trained mind was made manifest. Other wars had shown the value of an educated general; these showed the value of an educated army. It is true that Moltke, in mental power and in knowledge, was in no wise inferior to the great captains who preceded him; but the remarkable point of his campaigns is that so many capable generals had never before been gathered together under one flag. No campaigns have been submitted to such searching criticism. Never have mistakes been more sedulously sought for or more frankly exposed. And yet, compared with the mistakes of other campaigns, even with that of 1815, where hardly a superior officer on either side had not seen more battles than Moltke and his comrades had seen field-days, they were astonishingly few. It is not to be denied that the foes of Prussia were hardly worthy of her steel. Yet it may be doubted whether either Austria or France ever put two finer armies into the field than the army of Bohemia in 1866 and the army of the Rhine in 1870. Even their generals of divisions and brigades had more actual experience than those who led the German army corps. Compared with the German rank and file, a great part of their non-commissioned officers and men were veterans, and veterans who had seen much service. Their chief officers were practically familiar with the methods of moving, supplying and manœuvring large masses of troops; their marshals were valiant and successful soldiers. And yet the history of modern warfare records no defeats so swift and so complete as those of Königgratz and Sedan. The great host of Austria was shattered to fragments in seven weeks; the French Imperial army was destroyed in seven weeks and three days; and to all intent and purpose the resistance they had offered was not much more effective than that of a respectable militia. But both the Austrian and the French armies were organized and trained under the old system. Courage, experience and professional pride they possessed in abundance. Man for man, in all virile qualities, neither officers nor men were inferior to
