Part 27

The greatest change in the battle-fields of the future, as compared with those of a few years ago, will be found in the development and increased strength of the artillery. A modern army, when it takes up a position, has miles of front almost entirely occupied with guns, and the guns have to fire over the infantry, because there is no room for such numbers of guns to be used in any other way. The attacking side (if both, indeed, in one form or another, do not attempt attack) will be chiefly occupied in obtaining positions on which to place its guns, and the repeating-rifle itself, deadly as is its fire, cannot contend at ranges over a thousand yards, unless the riflemen are heavily intrenched, with the improved shrapnel fire of modern guns. The early engagements of a war will, indeed, be engagements of cavalry massed upon the frontier on the second day of mobilization, so rapid will the opening of war in the future be. This cavalry will be accompanied by horse artillery and followed by light infantry, constantly practised in rapid marching in time of peace, or by mounted infantry. But the great battle-fields of the later weeks will be battle-fields, above all, of artillery. The numbers engaged will be so great that the heaviest of all the responsibilities of the generals will be the feeding of their troops during the battles prolonged during several days, which will probably occur, and it is doubtful how far the old generals (often grown unwieldy in time of peace) will be able to stand the daily and nightly strain of war. Jomini has said that when both sides are equally strong in numbers, in courage, and in many other elements of force, the great tragedy of Borodino is the typical battle. Lewal has pointed out that in the battles of the future such equality must be expected: “The battle will begin on the outbreak of war in the operations of the frontier regiments. The great masses as they come to the field will pour into a fight already raging. The battle will be immense and prolonged.” Promotion will probably be rapid among the generals, owing to incompetence and retirement, and certainly among other officers owing to their exposure in these days of smokeless powder, when good shots can pick off officers in a manner unknown in wars which have hitherto occurred. Whether it will be possible to get armies to advance under heavy fire after the officers have been killed is doubtful, when we remember that modern armies consist of the whole population, cowards and brave men alike, and that regimental cohesion is weakened by the sudden infusion of an overwhelming proportion of reserve men at the last moment. On the other hand, in the German army the reserve men will be fewer in the first line than in the French, and the regimental system more available in the field, while on the French side the greater military aptitude of the French race may perhaps be counted upon to remedy the comparative defect. The Prussians make up for the inferior military aptitude of the German people by patriotism, discipline, and the conferring of honor and of civil employment, in after life, on all who do their duty in war. They also provide more effectively than do the French against incapacity in high place. Above all, however, we should attach importance to the wisdom of successive Kings of Prussia in treating the Prussian army as an almost sacred institution, and in constantly working in time of peace to make it and keep it a perfect instrument of war.

The weakest point, relatively speaking, in the French organization, and the strongest point, relatively speaking, in the German, is the officering of the second and third line. The one-year-volunteer system gives the Germans excellent “territorial” officers, while the French have been forced virtually to abolish it as impossible of successful application in a country so jealous of privilege as is modern France. The territorial infantry regiments of France would be excellent for the defence of fortresses, but would for field purposes be inferior to that part of the Prussian landwehr which would remain over after the completion of the reserve corps. The reserve cavalry regiments of France have been created in order to provide promotion and sinecure appointments, and would not produce a cavalry fit for true cavalry service in the field. It would carry us beyond the proper limits of this article to explain how it is that the French could create a field artillery of the second line in time of war which would probably be superior to that of Germany. This forms a set-off against some other inferiority of the French.

The newest point in the development of modern armies is the recent separation in the German army of the cavalry intended for patrol duties from the cavalry intended for fighting in the field. We have had to face the same problem in South Africa, but this condition of our war was peculiar.

It has been said that the history of warfare is the history of the struggle among weapons, and that each change in tactics and even in strategy has come from scientific change affecting weapons. In the century we have seen the change from the smooth-bore to the rifle and from the ordinary to the repeating rifle. We have seen the modifications of artillery, which are beginning to give an application of the quick-firing principle to field artillery, and the use of high explosive shells, likely to affect by their explosion even those who are near the bursting shell and who are not struck by its fragments. Smokeless powder has altered the look of battles and has reduced their noise. It provides excuse for the incompetent. It would be easy, however, to exaggerate the importance of these changes as regards tactics, and still more with regard to strategy, while with tactics we are not here concerned. The great continental military nations have hitherto not allowed themselves to be much affected by the changes in the weapons, and many of the modern fads which are adopted in small armies are condemned by the leaders of these great forces. The British machine guns, for example, like British mounted infantry, are generally regarded on the continent as a fancy of our own. All nations have their military fads, except, perhaps, the severely practical Germans. Russia has its dragoon organization, from which it is receding; America has her dynamite gun; the French have their submarine torpedo-boats. Our machine guns are not thought much more of by most Prussians than the steam-gun of 1844, ridiculed by Dickens in _Martin Chuzzlewit_. If great change was to have been made in the art of war by modern weapons, one would have thought that the first things to disappear would be all vestige of protective armor and the use of cavalry in the field. Yet protective armor has been recently restored to as large a proportion of many armies as used it in the wars of the beginning of the century, and the use of cavalry in the field is defended as still possible by all the highest authorities on the continent. My own opinion on such matters is that of a layman and should be worthless, but it agrees with that of several distinguished military writers. I confess that I doubt whether in future wars between good armies, such as those of France and Germany, it will be possible to employ cavalry on the field of battle, and I go so far as to think that the direct offensive, still believed in by the Prussians, will be found to have become too costly to be possible. Our South African experience is not, however, regarded by continental authorities as conclusive.

The author of _Ironclads in Action_, Mr. Wilson, who has made a very thorough study of the future of naval war, has pointed out with great force the most striking difficulties of war in the future as caused by the enormous concentration of forces in a particular tract of country. The result of that concentration must be great difficulties about supply, prolonged battles of an indecisive kind leading to exposure, absence of sleep, and to conditions which would form the severest strain for professional men of war, while those who will now be subject to them will be the ordinary population, not very specially warriors, except so far as patriotism may in some cases make up as regards courage and endurance for absence of military tradition. The vast number of wounded will be exposed for longer periods than was the case in many of the earlier wars; but when we remember Leipsic, and Dresden, and the retreat from Moscow, it is again easy to see that the change is rather in the direction of generalization of conditions, which were formerly exceptional, than a change to conditions wholly without precedent.

I have all through this article written of Germany and France as the modern military countries to be taken as a standard in all comparisons. The French have imitated the Germans very closely since the war of 1870. But, although imitation is generally feeble, it must always be borne in mind that the French people have greater military aptitude than the German, and that unless beaten at the beginning of a war they are always in the highest degree formidable. The perfection of system is to be found in Germany, and the peculiarities of the German system are the combination of enlightened patriotism in all its individuality with iron discipline. The system is so strong that unless well managed it would crush out individual responsibility; but the system itself encourages this individual responsibility all down the gradations of the army to the humblest non-commissioned officer and even to the detached private. The universality of promotion by a certain high standard of merit and the absence of jobbery are more thoroughly obtained in Germany than in any other army, and Lord Wolseley’s criticisms on the 1898 manœuvres of our own army, criticisms renewed in 1900, in which he told us that no one had done well in the field, and that this proved that no one could have done his duty during the past year, would be impossible in Germany, and must have shocked military opinion throughout that country.

It is not unusual to assume that the enormous military establishments of the continent of Europe are an almost unmixed evil. But this may perhaps be disputed on two grounds. In some cases, such as that of Italy, the army acts as a kind of rough national university in which the varied life of districts often discordant is fused into a patriotic whole, dialects are forgotten, and a common language learned. In the case of France the new military system is a powerful engine of democracy. There is a French prince (not of the blood) serving at this moment in a squad of which the corporal is a young peasant from the same department. A few years ago I found the Duc de Luynes, who is also Duc de Chaulnes and Duc de Chevreuse, the owner of Dampierre, the personal friend of kings, serving, by his own wish, for, as the eldest son of a widow, he was exempt, as a private of dragoons, and respectfully saluting young officers, some of whom were his own tenants. The modern military system of the continent, in the case of France and Germany at least, may also, I think, be shown to have told in favor of peace. It is possible for us to occasionally demand a war with the greater freedom, because we do not as a rule know what war means. Those of us who have seen something of it with our own eyes are a very small minority. But every inhabitant of France and Germany has the reality of war brought home to him with the knowledge that those of his own kin would have to furnish their tribute of “cannon flesh” (as the French and Germans call it) at the outbreak of any war; and the influence of the whole of the women of both countries is powerfully exerted in consequence upon the side of peace.

CHARLES W. DILKE.

NAVAL SHIPS

In the conditions of naval warfare the century now closed has seen a revolution unparalleled in the rapidity of the transition and equalled in degree only by the changes which followed the general introduction of cannon and the abandonment of oars in favor of sails for the propulsion of ships of war. The latter step was consequent, ultimately, upon the discovery of the New World and of the sea-passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. The voyage to those distant regions was too long and the remoteness from ports of refuge too great for rowing galleys, a class of vessels whose construction unfitted them for developing great size and for contending with heavy weather. The change of motive power made possible and entailed a different disposition of the fighting power, the main battery weight of ships being transferred from the bows and sterns—end-on fire—to the broadsides. The combination of these two new factors caused ships and fleets necessarily to be fought in a different manner from formerly—entailed, to use the technical word, new tactics.

The innovations thus briefly mentioned, though equally radical, were much more gradual in their progress than those witnessed by our generation. The latter have occurred not merely within the lifetime but within the memory of many who are still among us. They are embraced, easily and entirely, within the reign of Queen Victoria. It has been said, plausibly, that if a naval officer who died half a century ago could revisit the earth he would find himself more at home in the ships of Elizabeth than in those of her present successor. No such sudden and sharp contrast troubled the seamen of the earlier era. It is true and interesting to note that the battle of Lepanto in 1573, although a few vessels of broadside type therein exercised a decisive influence, was fought chiefly by galleys, while in the contest with the Spanish Armada in the English Channel fifteen years later sailing ships played the leading part; but while the fact gives a valuable assistance to precision of memory by fixing an approximate date when the one type was definitely supplanted by the other, it remains that the turning-point thus indicated was reached long after cannon and sails first were used afloat, and that another century elapsed before the galley was definitively abandoned.

BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE TRANSITION

A few dates will illustrate the swiftness of our recent transformations. In 1838, when the French navy reduced San Juan de Ulloa, the principal defence of Vera Cruz, and in 1840, in the British attack upon Acre, the fighting power was wholly in sailing ships such as had fought at Trafalgar thirty-five years before. Two small paddle steamers towed the French frigate into position, while the four British vessels of the same type contributed only a desultory addition to the broadsides of seven sailing ships of the line, which compelled the surrender of the fortress. The first screw ship of the line in the British navy was launched in 1852; the last sailing ship of that class went out of commission in 1860. All alike, the ships of Vera Cruz and of Acre, and their short-reigning successors, the steam frigates and ships of the line, are now as much things of the past, in sails, in engines, and in guns, as are the galleys of Lepanto and the ships of the Armada. By 1870 it had been recognized everywhere that a type of vessel corresponding in essential features with the present armored battle-ships had displaced all competitors. The span of a single generation had seen the transition of the ships of Drake and Nelson to those of our own day. The career of Farragut was run in the intermediate period. His success for the most part was achieved and his renown won with vessels substantially of the older type, but with auxiliary steam-power.

It is almost needless to remark that this seemingly abrupt transition is but one incident in the startling progress made during the century in all the arts of peace as of war. Like the others, it is due to an intellectual activity, greater probably than that of our predecessors, and directed since the peace of 1815 less upon external political interests than upon scientific investigation, and upon the application of the results to the improvement of processes of every kind. The changes in conception and in development of the instruments of naval warfare result from the increased power of dealing with refractory material which has been acquired by scientific and practical men in the laboratory and the workshop. Thus viewed, though so rapid in realization as to amount to a revolution, not only is the change seen to be the outcome of a long, though silent preparation, but it is brought also into its due relation to the general movement of the age, and found to share its special characteristics. Our ancestors of the eighteenth century had their own problems, noble and absorbing, but chiefly political in character. While new worlds were being gathered into the embrace of European civilization, the leading powers struggling among themselves for pre-eminence in the work, and while the harvest was ripening for the French Revolution, science crept forward, but slowly and silently, the pre-occupation of the few, not the interest of the many.

The object of the present article is to describe the type of war vessel prevalent universally among civilized nations when the nineteenth century opened, and to trace historically the sequence of ideas and of facts which have resulted in the type whose general acceptance is seen now in the practice of the chief naval states.

SAILING SHIPS AND BROADSIDE BATTERIES

When the nineteenth century began, the ships that contended for the control of the sea were, and for two centuries had been, sailing ships with broadside batteries: the guns, that is, were distributed along both sides from the bow to the stern on one, two, three, or four decks. From the largest down, all were of this type until the very smallest class was reached. In the latter, which could scarcely be considered fighting ships, the gun power was at times concentrated into a single piece, which swept from side to side round the horizon, thus anticipating partially the modern turreted ironclad with its concentrated revolving battery.

The arrangement of guns in broadside involved anomalies and inconveniences which seem most singular when first noted. A ship in chase of another, for instance, had no guns which threw straight ahead. If it were wished to fire, in order to cripple the fleeing enemy, it was necessary to deflect from the course; and in order to bring most of the guns on one side into play the vessel had to swing round nearly at right angles to the direction of pursuit. This, of course, lost both time and ground. Broadside fire—the distribution of guns in broadside—rests, however, upon an unchangeable condition, which controls now as it did a century ago. Ships then were from three to four times as long as they were broad; the proportion now is, length from four to six times the breadth—or beam, as it is technically called. Therefore, except in small vessels, where the concentration of the whole weight that can be carried in battery gave but one piece effective against a probable target, a full development of fire required the utilization of the long side of the ship rather than of its short cross-section. This is precisely analogous to the necessity that an army has of deploying into line, from any order of march, in order to develop its full musketry fire. The mechanical attainment of the last century did not permit the construction of single guns that would contain the weight of the whole battery of a big ship: but even had it, guns are not wanted bigger than will penetrate their target most effectively. When an ounce of lead will kill a man it is useless to fire a pound. The limit of penetration once reached, it is numbers, not size, that tell: and numbers could be had only by utilizing the broadside. This condition remains operative now; but as modern battle-ships present two or more kinds of target—the heavy armored and that which is light armored, or unprotected—the application of the principle in practice becomes more complicated. Batteries now are necessarily less homogeneous than they once were, because targets vary more.

DISAPPEARANCE OF BOW FIRE

The adoption of broadside batteries followed, therefore, necessarily upon increase of size and consequent length, but not upon that only. It is instructive to observe that the sailing fighting ship was derived, in part, at least, from the galley, and its resemblance in form to the latter is traceable for at least a century after the general disuse of the oar. As the galley, however, was small, it could concentrate its fire advantageously in one or two pieces, for which small number the cross-section offered a sufficient line of emplacement: and as, when it could move at all, it could move in any direction, there was a further advantage in being able to fire in the direction of its motion. Hence, bow fire prevailed in galleys to the end, although the great galleasses of Lepanto and the Armada had accepted broadside batteries in great part, and whenever the galley type has recurred, as on Lake Champlain during our Revolutionary War, bow fire has predominated. The sailing ship, on the contrary, was limited as to the direction in which she could move. Taking her as the centre of a circle, she could not steer directly for much more than half the points on the circumference. Bow fire consequently was much less beneficial to her, and, further, it was found that, for reasons not necessary to particularize, her sailing, steering, and manœuvring were greatly benefited by the leverage of sails carried on the bowsprit and its booms, projecting forward of the bow, where they interfered decisively with right-ahead fire.

For all these reasons, bow fire disappeared and broadside fire prevailed; but the fundamental one to be remembered is the greater development of fire conferred by greater length. All ships—except the very small ones known as schooners, cutters, and gunboats—were broadside vessels, moved by canvas which was carried commonly on two or three masts; but into the particulars of the sails it is presumed readers will not care to enter. Being thus homogeneous in general characteristics, the ships of this era were divided commonly into three principal classes, each of which had subdivisions; but it was recognized then, as it is now in theory though too little in practice, that such multiplication of species is harmful, and our forerunners, by a process of gradual elimination, had settled down upon certain clearly defined medium types.

The smallest of the three principal classes of fighting ships were called sloops-of-war, or corvettes. These had sometimes two masts, sometimes three; but the particular feature that differentiated them was that they had but one row of guns in broadside, on an uncovered deck. The offices discharged by this class of vessel were various, but in the apprehension of the writer they may be considered rightly as being above all the protectors or destroyers of commerce in transit. All ships of war, of course, contributed to this end; but the direct preying upon commerce, upon merchant ships, whose resisting power was small, was done most economically by small vessels of relatively small power. Having a given amount of tonnage to devote to commerce destroying, many small vessels are more effective than a few big ones of unnecessary force. Such being the nature of the attack, the resistance must be similar in kind. That is, a flock of merchant ships being liable to attack by many small adversaries, several small protectors would be more efficient than one or two large ones. Sloops-of-war served also as despatch vessels and lookouts of a fleet, but were less well adapted to this service than the frigate was.

THE FRIGATE AND HER GUNS