Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 33

The peace strength of the army is about 83,000, and what navy she has is practically new, as the Spanish navy was annihilated in the war with the United States in 1898.

During recent years the republican tendencies among the people have found vent in socialism. The Spanish socialist leaders belong mostly to the intellectuals, and here again is the weakness of the movement, whether considered as a means of giving Spain a republic or of liberating her political system under monarchical form. Some of the intellectual leaders among the socialists headed straight for philosophic anarchy, while others expended their energies in building castles in the clouds.

The substantial socialism of the recent period was, however, based on the workingmen's movement. Before the outbreak of the great war the tendency was to affiliate with the groups in other countries of Europe which advocated socialism as an international creed. But when the German socialists placed their country above internationalism, and the French socialists did the same, and the Italian socialists joined in the agitation to force the government into war to get back territory lost to Austria, the international basis of Spanish socialism disappeared.

CHAPTER XV.

MODERN WAR METHODS.

INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE AS AGAINST Ma.s.s MOVEMENTS--TRENCH WARFARE A GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK--RATS AND DISEASE--SURGERY'S TRIUMPHS--CHANGED TACTICS--ITALIAN MOUNTAIN FIGHTING.

Warfare such as carried on in the Great World War is so different from that of any other of the great wars which the world has seen, that it might be described as a method of fighting distinctively unique.

Undoubtedly, more ancient methods, and even ancient weapons, have been employed than were used in any of the wars which have changed, from time to time, the boundary lines of nations. The fighting of ma.s.s against ma.s.s has been practically obliterated, and modern evolutions where the plan is man to man have developed a mode of fighting where terrible execution has resulted.

Undoubtedly this means of fighting has developed the personal initiative of the soldiers, and the modern fighting machine of the nations is of a high standard, which, together with death-dealing weapons, has resulted in terrible havoc. Ma.s.sed movements, such as carried on in the War of the Rebellion, have been practically done away with, and although there have been long and costly sieges, they have been carried on by tedious trench fighting, airs.h.i.+ps, hand grenades, and ma.s.sive sh.e.l.ls fired from guns of great caliber, and with a range which is really marvellous.

Sh.e.l.ls are fired, shrapnel in some cases, explosive sh.e.l.ls in others, which are timed to the second, so that when fired from guns many miles from the objective point, they explode at a measured distance from the earth. They are exploded within a gauged distance of the target, and the execution is done over a measured area. On the sh.e.l.ls are indicators.

Within the shrapnel sh.e.l.ls are hundreds of small shot. As the sh.e.l.l explodes the shots are scattered over the enemy, and death and destruction are unavoidable.

With bomb sh.e.l.ls, fired from guns of the largest caliber, there are also indicators which are timed to the second. The range and time of explosion previously figured out by officers, the sh.e.l.l explodes where it is intended that it shall, and the work of the great explosive is done with resultant damage.

WAR'S MANY DEVELOPMENTS.

The war has developed many of the new methods of fighting and revived many of the old means of warfare. Cavalry has not been as active in the relation in the great war as in any of the wars of comparatively recent date, because of the extensive trench warfare which has formed so much of the fighting plan. Fighting has been a question of trench raids, and barrage fire, followed by the infantry charge through sh.e.l.l holes. The impression brought home to the modern observer is that the older recognized methods of warfare are gone for good.

The thing which war changed in the work of the cavalryman is in the nature of an addition, rather than a subtraction from his duties and the training he must have. The day of cavalry--as cavalry and nothing else--has pa.s.sed. For today the cavalryman must be familiar not only with the sword, lance and revolver, but with the rifle as well. It has been demonstrated that such long periods of trench warfare may develop that it becomes necessary for him to dismount and make himself valuable in the scheme of military economy by fighting as infantry until such time as the enemy line is broken and he can again take to his horse and the work of harrying the retreating foe.

The war has been full of surprising results as regards cavalry. It was popularly supposed that in facing such terrible modern weapons as the repeating rifle of long range, the machine gun and the automatic field pieces which have become so well known as the French "75s," any body of cavalry which attempted to charge the enemy would be annihilated.

CAVALRY'S SUCCESSFUL CHARGES.

Yet all through the early stages of the war one reads of desperate, and, what is more to the point, successful charges made by British cavalry against batteries of German field pieces. There was one instance in France, just back of the Belgian frontier, where a charge of British lancers against a German battery, which had a commanding position, saved the day for a greatly-outnumbered allied detachment, which was conducting that most difficult of all maneuvers, a rear guard action, covering the retreat of the body of the army. The charge of the lancers took the Germans so by surprise, and was executed with such speed, that despite the heavy fire they poured into the advancing hors.e.m.e.n the latter were at work among them with spear and saber before reinforcements could be brought up. Then the cavalry, dismounting and unslinging their carbines, defended the position with such tenacity that the German advance was delayed several hours, sufficient for the rest of the allied forces to make good its withdrawal and the consolidation of the new lines chosen for defense.

This idea of cavalry serving in the double role of infantry and cavalry is a distinctly American development, a trick which the Federal and Confederate armies taught the world during the Civil War, and of which the British made excellent use in South Africa against the Boers. The fact which this war has established, however, is that the older use of cavalry, in the charge against infantry, artillery and even entrenched positions is still of great value. The idea had developed from the tactics so largely employed in the Civil War of using the cavalry as mounted infantry, that the increased deadliness of modern weapons would make this use of cavalry the sole use.

Now, however, it seems that not even the lance is to be discounted.

Given the opportunity to reach his objective, the lance becomes a terrible weapon in the hands of the horseman. In hand-to-hand fighting the man with the rifle and bayonet has some chance against the mounted man with the saber. While fighting upward from a lower level he has a pretty long reach, and the advantage of being completely in control of his own movements, whereas even the most expert horseman cannot control the step and movement of his mount as well as a man can control his own.

Barring fire, however, the infantryman has no chance against the lance, with the speed and momentum of the mounted man behind it.

So, for this reason, though they are c.u.mbersome weapons under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and make a detachment equipped with them much more likely to be seen, lances were retained by many of the British cavalry regiments, just as the German Uhlans retained them.

CAVALRY'S IMPORTANT SERVICE.

One of the most important services which cavalry fulfills in modern warfare is that of drawing the enemy's fire at the time his positions are being approached. This is done to obtain some idea of his force and the disposition of his guns.

Cavalry detachments are sent scurrying across the front, as though threatening an attack, deliberately furnis.h.i.+ng a mark for the enemy gunners that this object of ascertaining his strength may be attained.

The more ordinary work of scouting, advance guard work, and riding wide on the flanks of an advancing force are parts of the cavalryman's work which are more familiar.

In the European conflict with tremendous concentration of troops and continued occupation of the same territory the foraging feature of cavalry work disappeared. It is no longer possible for an army to "live on the country as it goes." Food and supplies must be brought up from depots in the rear through an entirely separate and specialized department of the military organization, which does its work with a celerity certainly undreamed of in former days, even as late as our own war with Spain.

In the modern campaign trenches have been developed to such an extent that it is really marvellous how the soldiers live, and to what an extent the "underground fortresses" have been used for living as well as fighting purposes.

In a letter written by a French soldier who took part in a successful raid upon a German trench, he adequately describes the luxuries enjoyed by the German soldiers in the front line trenches in the Marne. The letter was written by a youth who had been wounded in the fight, and was mailed in April, 1917.

LUXURIOUS DUGOUTS.

"We are now living in German lines and dugouts--a magnificent work we have just now taken--cement and steel are used with profusion, and electricity in every dugout, even in their front lines. Unharmed cas.e.m.e.nts and machine guns in cemented shelters and light railways and immense reserves of food--thousands of bottles of claret.

"But also, at the middle of each staircase, in the wall, a box with about seventy pounds of cheddite--to blow the shelter up in case of retreat. They knew they might have to go back, as they are doing now.

America will gain victory, as until the present moment only the bravery of our soldiers can put them back, with much exertion and frequent loss.

"Our men are magnificent in spite of death. We hope your help may be quick and decisive. I think your flying corps especially may be useful, the more as yesterday, with four fellows, I was run through the field, and in a destroyed trench by a German Albatross shooting a machine gun, and flying very low, he missed us quite near. On the other hand, we have just a few days hence seen a sausage balloon destroyed by our men.

Anyhow your help may be decisive.

"I believe your joy is great about the Russian revolution. At home they are happy, too--only let us hope the Russian army may attack this summer--to help us.

"I need not tell you the impression made by your American decision here.

We now know victory is sure. Let us hope it may be this year--though you may easily guess such is not my belief--next year.

"I hope my next letter be sent from farther in the German lines--perhaps from a place they have not had time to destroy."

Shorn of all technicalities, the plain method of warfare which has developed as the result of the trench building is that each force establishes lines along miles of front with trenches in rows, one after the other, at measured intervals. The soldiers are thus "entrenched."

One force seeks to drive the other from its position.

MANY DEADLY DEVICES.

The force of batteries is directed against the entrenchments, hand grenades, bombs, sh.e.l.ls, gases and every device which has fallen to the use of armies is projected at the ditches in which are hidden the enemy soldiers. When, by the concentration of attack the trenches are destroyed or the soldiers driven from their first position, the opposing force has gained if it has succeeded in advancing its own soldiers to occupy and reconstruct the trenches or defences from which the enemy was driven.

The soldiers carry, in addition to the ordinary weapons, a trench spade, and in most cases large knives, which are used to cut away brush or dig in the earth when emergency demands. The close confinement in the trenches tends to develop disease, and the sanitary force of the modern army is a thing that was undreamed of in the olden days. More men died from disease during the Civil War than were killed by bullets or in hand-to-hand encounter.

The percentage of those who die from camp fever has been reduced to a minimum. Napoleon said that armies travel on their stomachs, but the European War and the Russian-j.a.panese War have proven, as did our campaigns in Cuba and Mexico, that soldiers live by reason of the health which they are permitted to maintain. Some idea of the conditions which developed in the trenches may be gained from a study of the various hospital reports, and investigations which have been made by physicians.

INFECTED WITH ASIATIC JAUNDICE.

Dr. Hideyo Noguchi, of the Rockefeller Inst.i.tute for Medical Research, completed a series of experiments which showed that apparently healthy wild rats in the European war zone became infected with Weil's disease, or "infectious jaundice," common in Asia. Weil's disease is characterized by sudden onsets of malaise, often intense muscular pain, high fever for several days, followed by jaundice, frequently accompanied by complications. It becomes more virulent as it is successively transmitted from one victim to another. This is supposed to explain the much greater mortality, about 38 per cent. in j.a.pan, as compared with from 2 to 3 per cent. among European soldiers.

The study of the disease was made possible by the successful importation from j.a.pan and Flanders of guinea pigs and rats which had been inoculated with the causative organism in those two countries.

Experiments previously made showed that the germ of the disease was carried in the kidneys of a large percentage of apparently healthy wild rats caught near the districts where the disease had been epidemic.