HOW BRITAIN NEGLECTED HER CHANCES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 165, 14 April 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW BRITAIN NEGLECTED HER CHANCES.

THE TRAGEDY OF REJECTED IDEAS. No war has like the present demonstrated the efficiency of mechanical appliances as aids tn victory. Credit must lie given to the Germans that they perceived this mechanical trend and gave it every scope for development and operation. They have carried the theory of mechanical superiority to the absolute limit of practicability. The British, on the other hand, have had to learn l>y hitter experiences what the Germans foresaw and adopted timeously, and thereby acquired enormous advantages in the field. This aspect of war —the foresight of one side to adopt new ideas, while the other neglects or rejects them—forms one of the most interesting chapters in military history. Clever, astute inventors have never been slow to perceive the suitability of great developments in mechanical and engineering science when applied to war; hut, unfortunately, in Britain nt least, they have had a sorry time battling with War Office anrv Admiralty officials in vain efForts to impress them with the utility of their ideas.

Let them look at some of the great tiagedies in rejected ideas to which officialdom in Britain blinded its eye*. One wonders what the course of events, what the history of England might otherwise have been if British inventors had not had their efforts trammelled and defeated by official red tape anc stupidity! DI'XDOXALD'S POISOX GAM. Everybody knows the story of Lord Dundoiiald's rejected prescription for making war with inevitable success. His formula was rejected and thrown among discarded papers generations ago in the archives of the War Office, ft was dragged forth from its oblivion a number of years ago and published in a London magazine. From tins source, it is said, the Germans derived the idea of employing poisonous gases, which they put into operation last year. Perhaps in this case Ave may pardon officialdom for rejecting the scheme, inasmuch as it meant a reversion to barbarian ; but we can hardly forgive them tlici stupidity tor attempting to ruin and disgrace Lord Dundonak. himself. After his brilliant naval exploits he was on return home arrested and charged with fraud. He was sentenced to imprisonment, deprived of all his naval honours, and subjected to complete political, naval, and social degration. Some of the ablest judges in England' took up his case, and succeeded'. after a long struggle, in having the sentence quashed, but, as a great legal authority declared, the case, remained as ''one of the blackest pages in the judician history of England."

THE STKAMSHIP REJECTED! A century ago Henry Bell, the inventor of the Comet steamship, submitted plans to the Admiralty proposing the adoption of steam propulsion in° the Navy, which, he indicated, would render* ships of war superior to tides am!' winds. One man alone in the naval service supported the idea. He was in less than the mighty Lord Xelson. He pleaded with the Admiralty to adopt the Clyde mans idea, warning them that if they rejected it other nations would adopt it, and so "vex every vein in this country." But the Admiralty were too wise, even for Lord Xelson. The steamship iwa was to them a fool clowning, and not until long year.* afterwards did circumstances compel them to go back on this decision. It is a singular coincidence that Napoleon, when he was contemplating the invasion of England in 1804 and had assembled great armies at Boulogne, while great flotillas were waiting in the '"harbours of Northern France that the some idea was put before him, and he. too, rejected it. Fultonj the inventor of the first American steamship, which plied on the Hudson in 180") seven \ears before the Comet on the CKc.'e, offered to Napoleon the plans for converting his flotilla into steam-propelled vessels. Napoleon's rejection oj the idea may be explained in this fashion that lie never seriously intended the invasion of England, perceiving its utter failure from the outset, and his assemblage of armies and flotillas were no more than part of a great game of intimidation. We know as a matter of history that he broke camps and sent !iis Boulogne armies into Italy. Incidentally it may be observed that this offer by Fulton, the American, to Xapoleon may he challenged in its integrity. There is no doubt that T' ulton visited Scotland about ISO2, saw the Charlotte Bund,as Steamship on ithe Forth and Clvde Canal, and Henry Bell lias also testified that he also showed him iiis plans for the Comet. Had our \dmiraltv accepted Bell s offer, made about 1«00 or I*ol, there never would have been anv ouestion as to whether Scotland or America invented the steamship. Henry Bell had to wait twelve years before he could find a man to buiki his ship.

WHERE AMERICA SCORED. Our Admiralty blundered again in declining to accept Captain Cole s design of'the first real battleship. _ the captain devised floating rafts equipped with a revolving platform for guns during the Crimean War, and these were used in shallow waters with great success against Russian forts. At his return from the war he was requested to submit his ideas to the Admiralty, which he die', outlining a ship with a turret containing the guns, which would revolve. At that time the old broadsider was still the only type ot war vessel in adoption. The ship not the turret—had to be turned round for the discharge of the guns. Captain Cole's idea,was rejected. In the meanwhile Gnosson had come forward with bis "monitor." embodying the same idea of mountingt the guns on a revolving pivot: ami this vessel wa> employed h\ the Americans in their Civil War. We were again late because officialdom had rejected the ideas ot a brilliant officer, and America, as ill xhe ea-o of ibt l steamship, claims the iir>t " battle-hiii."

A rUI'XOH CAIN. XavMnitli, the Siottisli inventor of the steam hammer. had a like experience with Ins gruat and revolutionary device. He 1 "egged his countrymen to accept the idea :iticl adopt it tor the dovelopmont of the iron and steamship building industries Nobody wou'd look at it. Happening to pay a visit to the Liroat French armament work-, at Crensot -the r-amo establishment which is to-dav turning out the big guns tor the French Army am: Navy—be saw his steam hammer actually in operation. Asking for information where they had got the design he was astounded to learn t?iat a French enrr'meer who had been on a visit to. Scotland had been shown a sketch of tlie hammer bv Naysmith s oartner. and nereeiving at once the value of the new invention, had mentallv noted some details. and on returning to OeiiMit soon

had the hammer working in the great armament establishment of France. When he heard that Naysmith hurried home to Scotland and took out a patent ' ()! h;s "rejected" hammer, which speedily earned universal adoptionthanks to the great French gun-making in 111. BOER ENTERPRISE To come to days closer at hand, the Boer War revealed many painful instances of War Office stupidity arising fi om their rejecting ideas and inventions belonging to natives of this country. One of the deadliest weapons the Boers employed against our men was the Pom-Pom, a Vickers' gun which fires a rain of projectiles, after the Maxim idea, each weighing lib. The gun was made in this country by Vickers, .Maxim, and Company. Ir was not adopted by the War Office: but the Boers had seen that it was a good weapon, and they incorporated it into their service. It did deadly execution among our men, who nicknamed it the "Pom-Pom," after the infernal ( in it emitted in its rat-tat-tat discharge of its missiles. Tt is a fact, also that in the Boer war our artillery was semiobsolete, outranged by the German guns which the Boers employed. Lord Hobertpis son lost his life at Colenso in an effort to drag up his outranged guns into a zone of fire, the Boer snipers opening fire suddenly from trenches across the river, from which a shot had never been fired until that moment. We know also that Sir George White sent sucii urgent messages from Ladysmith for big guns that Sir Percy Scott imported some naval 4.7's which he dismantled from H.M.S. Terrible anc 1 sent up t-nieously to the beleaguered garrison. The same also with Buller at Spion Kop. He pleaded for the bigger weapons which he ought to have had, and Sir Percy Scott again came to the rescue with improvised six-inch naval guns.

\\ e ho]x> when our superior War Office dign.tanos rejected tue pom-pom tlicy wore not actuated by the samp economy which pursued Li Hung Chang, the famous Chinese statesman, when he also decided not. to adopt it. It was on a visit to England when His Serene Highness saw the pom-pom spit out its leaden missiles faster than he cnliid count them. "How much does each shot cost ?" lie asked. "Six am.' sixpence," was the reply. "Ah : that is too much, for me." IvTTCH EX EH \S F( >RES I GUT. It :s another item in the indictment against our old War Office methods that it declined to accept the Maxim gun when first exhibited to it. This little weapon, the most marvellous invention in gunnery that has ever been made, fires GOO rounds a minute itself, and yet some patterns weigh no moro than 2811). a piece. The wiseacres of Whitehall, when they saw this terrible death - dealer experimentally, shook their heads and begged to bo excused for refusing its adoption on the ground that they could never l>e able to supply it with amunition. They were overwhelmed with the thought of the transport of suppies requisite for such u weapon, and so they gave it the pigeonhole.

Lord Kitchener was, however, much impressed with the .weapon, am." lie, having the requisite insight to perceive the impossibility of waging war against any nation which should adopt it, gavo it his imprimatur and orderea its introduction into the Egyptian Army, which he at that time commanded. Everybody knows the awful execution which this terrible engine of destruction made at Omdurman among the fanatical Arabs who attempted to rush Kitchener's lines. Without the Maxim, however, there is no saying what these infuriated tribesmen might not have achieved. The battle was a tribute to the Maxim—and to Kitchener's fore* s'ght.

THE KAISER TOO' Give tho Kaiser his c.ue. When lie saw the Maxim —on a visit to England —lie exclaimed —"That is the gun; there is no other." Not only did tho Germans adopt it, but they multiplied its numbers eight times per battalion over the figure which our slow and sightless War Staff deemed adequate. Mr. Lloyd George only tho oilier day confessed that the Germans had sixteen per battalion against our two. Considering the smallness of the British Army in its pre-war days, the restriction of this weapon to two units per battalion was a blunder equivalent only to their entire rejection of it in earner years. If our excellently-tiainec' men at Mons had lieen as well equipped as the Germans -with the sixteen guns per battalion what a different tale might have to be recorded of the retreat from Mons! Certainly wo could never have held up that great onrush of the enemy, but wo could have retired more easily and with less sacrifice to our*oves and more to the enemy. The winie story i.s to be told of the bigger field weapons. We were outclassed there also. The Wat' Office had never taken into its head the value and necessity of adopting field howitzers; nevertheless these were all along availnblo in this country. Vickers and Arm. strongs both manufactured field guns big as any that Germany possessed, but the War Office never could see any use for them until the Germans taught them by bloody lessons their shortsightedness. It is said that one of our private firms constructing these larger guns was aware years ago of our deficiencies, and they offered to the War Office to supply. The proposal met with the customary rejection. WAR OFFICE RED TAPE. 'Hie brains of the War Office, as it existed in the pre-war or ore-Kitchener davs, were to bo found —:n th> pigeon holes of its archives. All tho clever inventions were relegated to these repos'tories. Th.' brains are in the country — of that there is no doubt; one sees proof of thai in these rejected inventions: but at the heac' 1 of affairs has .dood another all-powerful body which has very often retarded progro>s in military and naval affair*. 11 wo look at it, the real reason whv wo have'these words, "Too Late" employed by Mr. Lloyd George on fourteen occasions in his recent our pages of military history is to be found jn the higher official red-tape «tupu"iity. Lot us hope tui< war will soe a new order ol things arise