FUTURE AERIAL WARFARE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2053, 13 April 1907, Page 1

FUTURE AERIAL WARFARE.

THE COMING OF THE AIRSHIP. LONDON, February 10. Apart' from the strong disapproval expressed by all tbo greatest military and naval authorities of the proposal to tunnel tbo English Channel, a very serious damper has boon placed upon the project by some excessively un pleasant suggestions recently put toward by that inveterate apple-cart upsetlor, Mr. \V. T. Stead. “What’s the good ot a tunnel” he exclaimed in effect, “if foreign armies can cross the Ohannol m airships?”

What indeed I And now ho has followed that up by another utterance. He wants to know what the coming Hague Conference is going to do about aerial warfare. Ho points out that: “The possibility of using the air as a base of attack was gravely considered by the Hague Conference of 1899. The Russian Government proposed that the Powers should forbid the dropping of projectiles and other explosives from balloons. It was argued that the different methods at present in uso for injuring an enemy were quite sufficient, and that in the interest of humanity the extension of the area of warlike operatines from the land and the sea to the air ought t'o be laid under the interdict of civilisation. After a good deal of discussion, it was decided to agree upon the following declaration. ‘The contracting Powers agree to prohibit, for a term of five years, tho launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of a similar nature.’ It was at first proposed that tho interdict should be perpetual, but Great Britain, France, and Roumnnia insisted upon limiting it to a term of five years. Ultimately, upon the suggestion of tho United States, the limit interdict was accepted for the sake of securing unanimity. The result is that as tho five years expired in 1904, there is at present no interdict on aerial warfare.”

“The Dutch general,” continues Mr. Stead, “who drew up the report of the sub-commission on the subject, drew a harrowing picture of a balloon dropping infernal engines charged with asphyxiating or soporific gases in the midst of troops on the field of battle. Such proceedings, he declared, passed the limits of legitimate warfare. ‘lt was a kind of perfidy,’ he exclaimed. ‘Let us bo chivalrous even in the way in which we make war.’ The decision ultimately arrived at, according to Captain Crozier, was taken ‘for humanitarian reasons alone.’ But he proceeds somewhat illogically to add that it was founded upon the opinion that ‘balloons as they now exist, form such an uncertain means of injury that they canot be used with any accuracy,’ and that ‘the limitation of the interdict to five years preserves liberty of action under changed circumstances, which may be produced by the progress of inventions!.’ ’ ’ Mr. Stead goes on to remark: “Even among those who have realised the jmssibilitv of an early solution of the problem of aerial navigation, tho majority do not much more thinking than is involved in repeating the wellworn Tonnysonian couplet:— Heard tho heavens fall with shouting and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies, grappling in the central blue. Having quoted those lines, they shut down their minds on the subject, feeling that such a glimpse of the Tratalgare and Tsuchimas of the future is enough. In reality, there is a great deal more to be said. For the possible developments of pitched battles between aeroplane navies in tho central blue may be insignificant factors compared with tho other developments for which no one seems to spare a thought. “Everyone quotes Tennyson’s lines about ‘aerial navies.’ No one seems to remember the couplet that immediately precedes them: — Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales. Yet as anyone who reflects a little upon tho consequences resulting from the general use of aeroplanes or airships will realise, it is this couplet rather than the more familiar lines which ought to occupy our attention.”

Ho thinks that if the airship is about to be added to the ordinary means of human transit, many tilings are about to happen of which most of us have not even begun to think. The exploit* of Mr. Spencer, M. Santos Dumont, the Wright brothers, have as yet hardly penetrated the ■consciousness of the general public. Their imagination, therefore, has net been set to work. To them, airships and aeroplanes belong to the. depart ment of the Arabian Nights, and ,as befits practical men of common sense, they refrain from wasting their time by exercising their brans uxion what would happen if what can never happen were to happen. “It is not probable,” says Mr. Stead, “that the chief use of tie aeroplane in warfare will be to fight other aeroplanes, but rather to drop high explosives upon ships and fortresses. If the airship can bo navigated with as much certainty as ships can bo steered and propelled at sea, there seems to bo some reason to fear that it will, within a short space of time, convert- the navies of the world into scrap iron. Half a dozen aeroplanes floating in mid-air over battleships at anchor would be able to drop bombs charged with high explosives on the decks of the floating fortresses. They would get the range, so to speak, for their aerial torpedoes by dropping hand grenades, and then a single well-placed projectile might put the greatest warship out of the action. The peril of the Dreadnought from the submarine is as nothing to the danger from this overhead bombardment. For the submarine is not worth much on the high seas, and ships in docks or enclosed harbors are safe from its attack. To aeroplanes, ships in docks would be even more exposed than if they were lying outside in the open. It may be that the sovereignty of the sea, which secures us immunity from invasion, may he destroyed by holts from the blue. In that case, as we should no longer be able to rely upon our fleets to defend our shores, the advocates of universal military service would have everything their own wav.” There is a probability, as is next pointed out, that the use of the aeroplane may entirely revolutionise the art of war. For example, the defence of fortresses would become almost impossible if the besiegers could at any hour of day or night, with comparative immunity, drop huge shells charged with high explosives in the heart of the citadel or rain down Greek fire upon the enemies’ arsenals and shipyards. All fortified places are constructed on the assumption that no attadk will he made on them from above. Apart from the actual destruction which the falling shells would achieve, it is probable that tho demoralisation resulting from this deadly hail, from the sky would render it almost impossible to keep men at their posts. It is, therefore, by no means improbable that

the coming .conference at tho Hague may find itself occupied with a subject which has no place on tho official programme. Tho question will arise, if a new weapon of warfare has been discovered which renders existing methods obsoloto, shall wo attempt to prevent its use, or shall wo bo driven to admit that war itself has become practically impossible? In other words, has tho aeroplane brought us face to lace with the situation tp which the discovery of“Vril” brought the nations in Lytton’s book “The Coming Race?” Mr. -Stead concludes as follows: “It will no doubt be argued that the nations will persist in war, and will merely add tho maintenance of an aeroplane fleet to the burden of existing armanonts. Tho answer to this is that they will no longer bo able to raise the funds required for the ■rcation of such new and costly .instruments of destruction. For tho aeroplane will not only entail an enormous new expenditure, bub it will dry up one of tho great sources of revenue by which existing armaments are maintaned. There is not a-single modern State which docs not derive a great part of its revenue from Justoms duties which are levied at its frontiers. But whatever else tho aeroplane may do or may fail to do, one thing is certain ,it will wipe out frontiers. To prevent smuggling after the advent of the aeroplane will bo impossible. We raise nearly thirteen millions every year by duties on tobacco, and nearly half as much on spirits and other commodities of comparatively small weight and bulk. Other nations .whose tariffs cover almost evory commodity used by man, would be in a still more evil case. Nor can any extension of the coastguard service prevent the introduction of goods unsupervised by the Customs. Of course goods of immense weight and bulk will remain the prey of the tariff-maker. But light goods, valuable goods, will come by airship. There is not a Treasury in Europe which will not be brought to the door of bankruptcy at the very time when, if war is to continue, the need for an enormous new expenditure on the aeroplane fleet will become imperative. Hence 1 am disposed to regard the aeroplane as the probable instrument of one ol the most beneficent of all revolutions — the abolition of war.”—N.Z. Herald.