The Impossibility of War [pp. 278-282]

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF WAR
BY JACK LONDON
T HE Future of War," by M. Bloch,
the great Polish economist,
throws some edifying light upon
the events now transpiring in the Transvaal. The ease with which the Boers have
held back the British has called forth universal surprise and comment, and further
emphasized the practical impossibility of
frontal attacks on intrenched troops and
the seeming impossibility of successful enveloping or flanking. In the stubbornly
contested advance of General Buller to the
relief of Ladysmith may be noted much
evidence in favor of M. Bloch's affirmation
that war is no longer possible,-not
between the first-class soldiers of first-class
powers. In Europe, as he points out, it
is conceded to be impossible for the minor
states to go to war, except by leave and
iicense of the great powers. They in turn
are almost equally matched as to possession of the machinery of war, and in the
event of hostilities can mobilize their
great armies upon their own frontiers
before invasion by the enemy.
In such a case, the Polish writer holds,
a deadlock will occur, and the side that
advances, advances to extermination.
With forces approximately equal, all military writers are agreed that frontal attack
is suicidal, and, for the same reason, flank
attack unwise and impossible.
French statisticians inform us that an
attacking body, in order that it shall not
be inferior to the defenders when it has
got within thirty-five and a half yards (the
distance at which it will be able to rush
upon the enemy), for each hundred men
of the defenders must have six hundred
and thirty-seven men; while.if it wishes
to reach the actual position of the defenders not numerically inferior, it must
have eight times as many men.
From the statistics of General Skugarevski we learn that a body of troops
double the strength of the defenders,
beginning an attack from eight hundred
paces, by the time they have advanced
three hundred paces will have less than
half their strength available against the
defense. With equal forces, the defenders
may allow the enemy to approach to
within a distance of two hundred and
twenty yards, when they will only need to
discharge the six cartridges in their magazines in order to annihilate the attacking
force.
The celebrated Prussian authority,
General Miiller, declares that in order to
avoid total extermination soldiers will be
compelled, in scattered formation, and as
much as possible unobserved by the enemy,
to creep forward, hiding behind irregularities in the field, and burying themselves in the earth like moles.
It is the technical development of the
machinery of warfare that has invested
the attack with such fatality. Rapidity of
fire, greater range, greater precision, and
smokeless powder may be accounted the
four factors which have brought about
this apparently absurd state of affairs. In
the last thirty years the soldier's rapidity
of fire has been increased twelve times.
With the new self-charging rifle of the
Mauser pattern (the six-millimeter gun)
a soldier can fire from six to seven times
per second. But on account of reloading
the magazine, he can fire only seventyeight unaimed, or sixty aimed, shots per
minute. Ilowever, this is not so bad.
These improved weapons will inevitably
demand the rearmament of the armies of
Germany, Austria, Italy, France, and
Russia, at an estimated cost of not less
than $754,000,000, a sum which will ta:
the wits of the parliaments to wring from
the groaning workers.
Better explosives and the reduction of
calibers have given greater range, and by
the leveling of the trajectory of the
bullet, greater penetration. At half a mile
a bullet will go as easily through a file of
men as through the body of one. The
Indians in our late trouble in Minnesota,
used to the traditional method of fighting
from shelter, discovered that even the solid
diameter of a tree no longer afforded protection and threw down their guns in disgust. Only a fool would fight under such
conditions.
The modern rifle has a range of from