THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1909. THE WINGS OF WAR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9648, 13 November 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1909. THE WINGS OF WAR.

A contributor in the latest number of the "Nineteenth Century," in an artilec entitled "The Wings of War," draws a graphic and striking picture of what will be the effect (as it appears to him) on warfare when the science of aviation has been further developed. He declares that as a commerce destroyer the flying ma chine of days to come will indeed ■ nave an enormous potentiality. Poised, like a hawk, high in the . j skies, with a huge expanse of ocean under survey, and able to sweep upi on her prey with a speed far exceed ing perhaps that of the swiftest wind, ' her power of wreaking mischief will be immense, so long as ships continue to float on the surface of the sea. Less absolutely annihilatory, though yet tremendous and crushing, would be the power of an aerial fleet to effect destruction upon land. It has indeed been said that explo* sives launched from an airship or an aeroplane would inflict no greater injury than similar explosives hurtling through the air in a shell. But the bombardment of a town can only be attempted by a fleet or an army. To use the first requires the greater sea power; to use the second, the greater land force. But against a fleet sailing in the abyss of air, both these superiorities would be valueless. Unless every large town in Britain could be provided with a numerous and powerful artillery, warranted, even in dark nights, to hit objects which those who aim it cannot see, no protection against aerial attack could be given either by the British Navy or the British Army to British cities. Against each such city, the aerial force could concentrate its attack, and bombard it at will, choosing its own time, and able also—since we are speaking of time some years hence, when speeds will have vastly increased—to renew within a few hours the stores which it expends. "But," continues the writer, "it cannot be requisite to labour this point. It must surely be admitted .that the existence of an aerial fleet, capable of causing an immensely wide destruction and (incapable of defeat save by another similar fleet, must involve the passing to those fleets of the supreme interests of war. What follows again from this position is that we are approaching the verge of a change far greater than Viat which occurred sixty years ago.when Un; introduf'i n of steam suddenly rendered oLs^'ete

all the sailing warships of tne world. That change eclipsed only the then existing fleets of all the nations. This change, now coming, will eclipse their armies, too. And in that eclipse is evidently involved a vast revolution in the liffl of Europe.

The very foundation of the modern European system is the obligation of compulsory military service. '"Face" our English Kadica's. whosa ide:<s of the universe are perhaps more profoundly opposed to fact than those of any set of politicians who ever preceded them, all human arrangements are in reality bast-d upon force, and force in Europe take, the j form of vast masses of men, ot whom as many as possible are to be brought into the firing line. Upon the efficient fulfilment of this necessity, the maintenance of the political geography of Europa depends. Because Russia failed to fulfil it, wj have lately seen that geography altered, and Bosnia and Herzegovina incorporated in the Austrian Empire. But the moment in which flying machines become Ihe dominant factors of war will he a moment at which the whol« European policy will be pierced at its base. To bring masses of soldiers into line of battle will become an aimless act of archaic stupidity. For they will be J unable to defeat the machines; and they will be unable to prevent them from ravaging the resources of the individual and of the" State. Hence the necessity of universal compulsory service will pass away—-to the infinite loss of the moral and physical health of the . European peoples—and, in the stead of masses of briefly trained men, will arise a new set of elaborately ' trained warriors to man the aerial j machines ot the future.