A GENERAL'S FORECAST

Shannon News, 24 January 1928, Page 1

A GENERAL'S FORECAST

FACTORS OP NEXT BIG WAR...

'* We may take it that the British foreign policy is peace, to keep and improve upon what we have already got. That is rather different from the'policy of our ancestors,'' said General Sir George Milne, chief of the Imperial General Staff, presiding a* the first of a series of lectures at King'3 College, last month, reports the Daily Telegraph

'•ln previous generations," said Sir George, '-'the policy may be .described as to got what we wanted, to get it peacefully if possible, and if not peacefully, by the sword and by means of th-o.se forces which were at our disposal at the moment. The role of the army is quite simple; organization is a more difficult matter. In the matter of. organisation we have two ruling factors. The first is the Treasury; the second, the inventor. As taxpayers, I have .no .doubt all your sympathy is with the Treasury. Wc are constantly having demands for the reduction of the expenses of the arm;-, and the army Council is constantly seeking ways to reduce the expense. "I should like to say that I cannot help feeling we have not yet arrived in that era mentioned by Bernard Shaw, when he says: "A, soldier is an anachronism of which we must get rid." What wc soldiers have to guard against is allowing-the army to sink through possible apathy .into that condition into which it had drifted' after the Crimean and South African Wars."

Lieutenant-General Sir A. Mont-gomory-Mashinberd, the lecturer, speaking of possible wars .and enemies hi the : future, said - that during t]\?. last century they had small wars in practically .every .part of the world. If they looked at the map of the world now, and considered,, the pos sibility of small wars, they would agree that, with the exceptiqn of the Indian frontier, the possibility of small wars hfid -very. much decreased. As regarded more serious wars, tWestem Europe was still exhausted after the Great War r and' though,,every.. now. and then there .were excursions and alarms, a big war in Europe seemed very unlikely for a long time. We very fortunately had refused to sign the Protocol, which would have made us liable to he landed in to anv smai:! war which started on the Continent, but by the Treaty of Locarno we had undoubtedly engaged ourselves to fight on the side of either Germany or France, whichever was provocatively attacked, and that was a definite commitment. "There are two factors of which it is most important not to lose sight, [f populations go on increasing as they are now, the population of Germany in about 20 years, will be 90. 000,000 and France 30,000,000 The Germans have no outlet now for surplus population, and defeat in th< : Great War no doubt rankles in German mind, and will continue to do so. Secondly, by the Treaty of Versailles, we raised in Europe a large number of small States, which, like the Balkans, may be a constant source of trouble. Those are two things which may prove in 20 years| time a very serious danger to peace.'' At present there was nothing in the way of trained men to fill up the regular army from the moment when it "mobilised" until the territorial army had been trained. It was the first five or six months of a War which was as a rule the critical period. Another question which would have to be rided was whether, in the event of a big war, wo were going to rely on volunteers' or on conscription. It has been said that the army is a proiectile fired by the fleet. That proiectile must be large enough, well manufactured, and kept up to date, an a_what is equally important-when the times comes it must be aimed at targets which have been thought out carefully beforehand in time or peace.'' •