MEN AND GUNS, BUT MAINLY GUNS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2729, 25 March 1916, Page 12

MEN AND GUNS, BUT MAINLY GUNS

LESSONS OF THE WAR DEARLY LEARNT LESSONS Mr. Frederick Palmer, representative of tlie American Associated Press at the front, is writing a series of articles on "Europe's Buttle-front Lessons for America." Mr. Palmer writes: —Artillery is the sensation of this war. No one disputes that. Without adequate guns an army is helpless; However excellent its rilies, howover well drilled it may be, it is sheep for slaughter. The use of guns means tho use of machinery for killing, instead of old-fashioned man-power. Safo out of reach of rifle bullets, the guns work their will with the infantry.

Germany was the one nation which fully foresaw the importance of artillery, before tho war. .Her attaches brought tho lesson homo from the Uusso-Japancse AVar. The Gorman staff accepted the opinion of its experts —and acted accordingly. A good proportion of the immenso sum .which Germany used in preparing for this war went into the guns of every possible kind and calibre—from tho machineguns that lire bullets to anti-aircraft guns, from mortars that lire bombs to guns that fire smart little high velocity shells, and enormous 17in. shells. Germany concluded to use machinery to win instead of llesh and blood—yet Ger many has never had enough guns in this war, never enough shells. There seems no such thing as enough' artillery in modern war. Artillery can blast any position, any town, any fort to pieces. Sufficient artillery can stop the best infantry in the world. The experience of tho British Army in this war is lesson enough. It hardly seems possible that the England of the British Navy and the that sent its little army to that heroic i_etreat'from Flanders is one and tha same country. The fact that it is proves- that successful warfaro _ these days is not due to innate heroism of the people or their willingness to give up life and money, but to have jlio machinery of war ready. The British Navy wanted nothing in ths way. of modern preparation. It led in all mechanical processes. It had the latest guns, tho latest designs of ships. . Not a single bit of equipment or a single tool for war was lacking. Its experts had foreseen the needs of naval war, but the British Army was without adequate artillery, .or aeroplanes, or anti-aircraft guns. Tho British Navy was an. up-to-the-minute organisation, because the British people wore ready to pay tho cost, and insisted on full preparedness. Tho people didn't talco the same interest in the Army. They thought tho Army would get on somehow, and i iioy let, its demands wait. Wasn't Tommy Atkins the. bravest soldier in tho world? Wasn't he British? ' ile would take care of himself againsc any enemy. '. For the British public, 'in much the s'ame way as ours, visualised an army as soldiers, carrying rifles and nothing else. At Mons, and again on the Aisue, and later in tho first battle of 'ipres, the Germans ivoro firing anywhere from three to ten shells to ono against the British, who had to sit in their trenches and tako it. If they charged, they met the bullet-sprays of machineguns, while they lacked piachine-guns to meet the German charges. Again, and yet again—artillery and lnachineguns aro things you buy, tilings you build, the product of factories, not of the cradle and of the affection of homo, as men are. So England and France, too, and all the Allies, because .they lacked guns, paid the price of holding by tho doatli of brothers and sons against the merciless blasts of shells.

Clarions, Nb Doubt, Dut Is that what you .want-us to do? Apparently. It is {So" American plan in caso of war, presumably, because ve think we aro just as brave as anybody olse. _ And, being a sbrave, why not prove it by trying to stop shells with our cuticle as armour? At Waterloo and Gettysburg tho losses were 23 to 30 per cent. ■ Tho old rule of nar was that w.uu the loss of 10 per- cent. _ you prepared to retreat, while tho best troops on earth were not expected to lield with tho loss of 25 per cent. The British battalions and the French battalions held in this war after the loss of 50, 60, and even 70 per cent. It was glorious, no doubt. Statues will bo raised to those heroes. Poets will sing their praises. But what was tlie good of it? Why try to stop a buzz saw with, your hands instead of chucking a piece of dynaniito into tlie machinery? Dynamite is much cheaper than flesh. England's agreement was to put m 120,000 men oil the continent. Franco and llussia were to do the rest of tie land fighting while England held the sea. The most- important reason that Franco and Russia needed further assistance was lack of artillery and machino guns. AVhen England found that Franco and Russia could not do it alone, she had to go in, not'with 320,000 men, but with 4,000,000. In six months England made very good infantry, but it was infantry naked to tho enemy's artillery fire. For those 4,000,000 men England ought to have had no fower than-15,000 guns. Fifteen thousand of different calibres.

So Easy on Papor. There may be a lot of people in the United States who think that we aro so rich and so ingenious and adaptable, that in case of war tho President of the United States would have only to call up a number of our manufacturing plants, knitting mills, biscuit factories, shoe factories, as well as steel mills, and say: 'Wow we Americans are going to prove that this preparedness is all very well for those backward, stick-in-the-mud Europeans, but when it comes to the United States! Well, wo want five thousand guns delivered in a month. Yes, send them along fast freight, and iu&rk*them 'PcrisViaolc. 1 55 Yet thero was England, tho greatest trading nation; and a-, great manufacturing nation, with all her resources, plus all tho resources of the rest of tho world, as her navy kept the sea lanes clear_ to bring munitions to her shores, which made the samo call 011 the United States that tho' President would have to make in case of war. Sho was ready to pay any price to got those guns—five times their usual cost if she could have them in six months, wliilo her new infantry waited for them, and her veteran infantry suffered for lack of them. Times were hard in tho United States; there was the chance for our manufacturers to make quick forout of generous bonuses. Yet, surprising fact,' not even American adaptability and enterprise were able to make the guns as quickly as you'll knock a dry-goods box together out of somo hoards. Before they could produce the guns they had to build tho plants for gun-making.

A year has passed, and England has not enough guns yet. Meanwhile she has sought any kind of guns, old guns as well as new. She had remodelled tho old as a makeshift till the now arrived. Consider tho cost of the delay! Consider what it would have meant if sho had had 5000 guns ready! Then tho artillerymen of her new army would not have,had to wait for months after they had been drilled- before they had tho tools to work with. The.v wore lilco railroad crews with-no trains to run. Gunnery of the French. Tho French placed their reliance lih'Kdl.v on onp {,yye—the Hekl jjtiu, They throw a three-inch shell contain-

ing 800 or more shrapnel bullets, which ■are propelled by a burst in the rir over the heads of infantry. A three-inch gun can bo fired at twenty shots a minute for a minute or two, and it can keep lip six or eight shots quite consistently. Thus a battery of four guns means twenty-four a minute, or 240 shells, bursting siieir 300 bullets, which would be over 14,000, in a space 100 square yards. How would you like to be drawn up in rcscrvo in that space witii no guns on your sido to reply? The French had the best field gun because of its steadiness against recoil, which kept continual accuracy of aim. Though the French did not believe much in machinegiins, they were fully alive before tlie war to the need of ample guns of larger calibre. Hut >the French Government didn't believe war was possible. It did not feel it could afford the money for an up-to-datp gun establishment. So the FrencTi went into tho war lacking either artillery, or a sufficient supply of high explosivo shells.

Tho high explosive bursts after it enters the earth; it smashes trenches into dust, and destroys buildings. One hitting in tho right place may wipe out half a company of infantry. On the battlefield of Lorraine, where Paris was saved in the great struggle of August-September, 1914, no loss than oil the Marne, I was able to understand the fearful handicap which the French suffered. One could see just how far tho fire of the Bavarian guns reached by the pits dug in the field by their high explosives. There were places where these were so numerous along a line held bv the French infantry that you could almost cross o field by stepping from one to another. Upon the Plateau d'Amance,' in Lorrainej a hill perhaps three-quarters of a milo in length and an eighth in breadth, tho Bavarian artillery threw up no loss than 50.000 shells during tho battle of Lorraiiie. That was in the early days, before we heard of half a million shells being fired in twentj-four hours. It proved again that the Germans foresaw the character of modern warfare. The French infantry nevertheless "stuck," and they saved Lorraine, and helped save Paris._ Yet how many French mothers paid the price of that victory in tlie loss of a son whoso life might have been saved if France had had adequate heavy artillery, as well as light artillery,_ as represented by the wonderful, efficiently manned seventy-five? No wonder that Frenchmen wear a bronze replica of the Soixante Quinze in their buttonhole as if it were a decoration. It is a symbol of tho power of machinery in modern war. t Now an Exact Science.

If the French the best gunners in Europe, as many'think they are, it is partly bocimse of tradition inherited from Napoleon's time. The artillery instinct is in their blood. Their nature fits them to be gunnere. Tliciy love the work of the gunners. But that is not enough, Year in and year out in peace their (runners had been trained for tho day when war'should come. Therefore the gunners, as well as the gtins, must be ready. Gunnery has become an exact science. A private of artillery must be a good horseman, a' good 'mechanic, quick of eye and hand, cool, and he must know his work by long drill. As many as five hundred guns have been used oil tho Western front in supporting an infantry attack on five thousand yards of trench, and no general thought tho.y were enough. They were not. Again and again there cannot - be too many pins in modern warfare. Particularly wore there not enough of tho laraer calibres, four, six, and eight-inch, both rifles and howitzers. The rilled gun carries a long distance. The shell does not go high, but in a low trajectory, as it is called, which makes it less useful against trenches than, the shorter range howitzer iVith a higher angle of flight which brings it down into the narrow ditch in tho. earth. The howitzers and field-guns work together, the high oxploaive aud tho shrapnel. Ono drives bullets into tho faces of the infantry when in the open; tho other tosses the infantry skyward by explosions in the earth. One destroys tho barbed wire in front of tho trenches, the other destroys the trenches. i,

At the start of this war tho Allied Runners, disbelieving in high explosives, fired 80 per cent, of shrapnel. Tho percentage has been almost reversed in favour of high explosives. Modern warfare means digging. Instantly infantry comes to rest in face of the enemy lliey go to work with their spades. In half an hour they will have protection from shrapnel. Howitzers and high_ explosives have become essential. The war lias, proved that an army, to fight effectively, must have guns in super abundance; it has also proved that modern guns must bo mobile; they must be readily moved about from one plaoo to anotlier.- The stationary gun in a fort is a dodo. Fort Arthur proved that: but most people could not believe so because it happened in Manchuria. AYlien the Germans had to attack the forts of Liege. Namur, Maubeuge, and Antwerp they prepared the nroper modern implement, tho famous 42-centimeter or 17in. howiter, which blasted the steel cunolas and cement beds intp pieces. They were no "secret to the Allied staff, as the world supposed. Their existence was known, but the funds were not forthcoming for building them in England and France. But this was only ono reason; for that type is not used except against forts. The Germans knew that they were going through Belgium, and knew that they had to destroy Liege and Namur. Therefore they built guns for the purpose. When the_ French cam« to defend Verdun, their great. Eastern frontier, they gave up the Idea of stationary guns. They put their infantry out so far in advance that • tho big German 17ih. howitzers could not be brought t'o fear. They kept transferring their fortress jjuns from ono point to anotlier as it suited their purpose. Their hands were not tied. They were free to move. The Germans failed to take Verdun because the French kept to the mobile artillery offensive; and the artillery defensive 'must lose. Beside tlio Belgian defence of Namur, .amateurish and inexperienced, that of tho French defence of Verdun represents I scientific modern warfare.

Thero is notbing like having the start of 'tho enemy in your artillery strength. While the Allies were working to build a supply of heavy calibres equal to wliaf the Germans had at first, the German p'ants were busy constructing move and more guns to add to their already large number. Of course, tlio Alffes will eventually catch up and pass the Germans —but think of the time it takes! With artillery the Germans crashed through in Galicia, ( and again Massed their way to Warsaw last summer, maintaining their superiority of anywhere from two to five to one of gun-fire against tho Russians. With sufficient guns yon can hold back \an invading force. Guns are the best insurance policy there is for an undefended country.