POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS IN KILLING.
IT is difficult to read the report of operations such as those before Alexandria, without a mental speculation whether' the art of killing without personal collision, which is the grand difference between ancient and modern warfare, will ever be much further advanced. It is quite possible it may, though Military critics hold the progress already made to be so wonderful, as, indeed, it is. You can drop projectiles a mile off with a force which nothing but earthworks can resist, containing explosives which will kill all living things within a circuit of a hundred feet. As regards the distance between attacker and attacked, we are within measurable distance of perfection. The proba- bility of the invention of a true " long range " weapon, that is, a gun which could throw a missile to a distance beyond sight, is extremely slight. The explosive which would have such force could not be held in by any known metal, and the curvature of the earth's surface would render accuracy practically impossible. We can already throw gigantic shells, weigh- ing one thousand seven hundred pounds, for a distance of three miles, and that is practically as groat a distance as is needed. Of course, a torpedo, which is as much a missile as a shell, might be invented which would go farther—that is, which would travel in a straight line as long as its machinery worked, and explode at the end on impact—but the prospect of such an engine is very slight. We can conceive of the needful machinery, an electric accumulator supplying the required force ; but every thousand yards of distance must so greatly increase the chance of deflection, that over a course, say, of ten miles, a fleet of torpedoes might go astray, leaving the opposing vessel un- harmed. We shall not do much in the way of distance, nor can very much improvement be effected in the way of accuracy. The scientific gunners can already drop their shells with mechanical precision, and the only advance possible would seem to be the abolition of the smoke, which at present interferes with perfect aim. Science can do much, but it cannot make Liam totally independent of eyesight, or enable a gunner who cannot see where his shot strikes to be absolutely certain that it has struck the object he intended. The destructive force of shells, however, might conceivably be very greatly increased. Powder, oven as now manufactured, is not a very potent explosive, compared with some of those known to chemists ; nor is it impossible that means both of carrying and of firing shells loaded with the latter might be discovered. If they were, if, for example, it were possible to throw a conical shell of which the front half was filled with dynamite, for a mile, to explode only on impact, the bombardment of a fort from the sea would become extraordinarily difficult or impossible. Any such shell would rend a ship, whatever its construction ; it might rain such shells for five minutes, and sailors could not be procured to face the certainty of such unavailing destruc- tion. They will dare any risk, but they would not face the new shells bursting in wooden ships; and they will not encounter, we may feel assured, intelligent volcanoes. It may be said they could fire the same shells, and so they could, but the men on shore would have the advantage that their protection might be an earthwork, and an earthwork may be impenetrable. The guns of the 'In- flexible ' might batter away at Primrose Hill for a good many days without producing much change, and artificial earthworks or dykes have been made to sustain the impact of millions of tons of water iu motion. There is no chance of our getting an earth- work to steam about on water at ten miles an hour. The im- provement of the shell is quite conceivable, as is also the dis- covery of a new powder with such a driving force that a shot urged by its explosion would penetrate anything that could be made to float ; and the best security would be thin wooden sides for ships, offering the least resistance. So, too, it is difficult to believe that the idea attributed to Captain Warner, of throwing a shell which, when it bursts, gives out an asphyxiating vapour, is utterly impossible of realisation. Such vapours exist, and the objection to their use is, we imagine, chiefly this,—that they all rise, and can be avoided by men who fling themselves flat on the ground. Captain Warner's experiments, if they are not alto- gether mythical, were alt made on flocks of sheep, and the poor beasts were unaware of the form in which death was to arrive.. An asphyxiating vapour in a ship, or the inside of a fortress, would be a most destructive weapon, as the vapour would be concentrated by the confined space.
But are no discoveries possible which should radically alter• all the conditions of fighting, and either render war impossible, or give certain victory to those who dare face such destructive machines ? It is most improbable. The human race has been studying the Art of War for four thousand years, and has dis- covered exceedingly little, except the fact that an explosive in a confined space will drive a missile along way. They have learned to throw stones scientifically. Since Agincourt, man has improved on the discovery of powder, but has invented nothing absolutely original. For thirty years the most learned chemists, the most in- ventive mechanicians,the most scientific soldiers have devoted their minds to this subject, with a kind of fury of eagerness prompted at once by the love of fame, by patriotism, and by the hope of rewards which, to some of them, like Mr. Whitworth,, Sir W. Armstrong, and Herr Krupp, have been granted with a lavish hand, and they have discovered nothing. They have made bigger guns, and better shells, and more explosive pow- der, and have devised clever ways of keeping the shells out, but that is all. The way of killing soldiers is to fire little bullets through a small barrel; the way of destroying works is to fire big bullets through a big barrel,—and that is all. New ex- plosives have been discovered, but no new way of throwing them for the required distance. If ships ever touched, or nearly touched, as in Nelson's days, we suppose a catapult might throw a barrel of nitroglycerine which, exploding downwards, would annihilate the enemy's vessel; but the experiment has never been tried. A ship which approached so close could ram ; and such a barrel, not being driven by an explosive, could be kept off by a wire netting. The only two directions in which even dreamers can see a probability of much change are the use of electricity or the use of balloons, and of either the prospect is very slight. We can do a great deal with the lightning, but we cannot throw it, nor is it easy to conceive how it could be darted, ex- cept through a conductor. Mr. Urquhart's dream of the quiet savant who fought the Capitalists' army without weapons was original, but was only a dream. The Capi- talists had mastered the world, and the Proletariat rose in revolt, resolved to die rather than be pillaged longer. They had no weapons, the Capitalists owning all ; but as the Capitalists' army approached, electricity, shot from unseen batteries, struck every particle of metal used by the soldiers, and the army perished as suddenly and silently as that of Sennaeherib. That is a mere dream. It is just conceivable that some Mr. Edison might manage so to establish a wire connection with an iron- clad that the whole structure should be full of death-giving electricity,—be, in fact, a huge wire charged by a dynamo. But it is only conceivable, as is the similar dream—which has greatly interested some able mechanicians—of so arranging mirrors as to concentrate intolerable heat, heat that would pulverise a diamond, at a considerable distance. The thing could be done, we believe, so effectually, that the very ribs of an iron ship would dissolve into molten metal, but not at any distance. In balloons, there is a little, and a very little,.
more hope. It is always a possibility that immense electric force may be concentrated in such a small space, that a machine supported in the air by balloons could be guided at will ; and if that were achieved, the conditions of war would, of course, be finally altered. No cities could be defended against a machine showering dynamite shells, armies might be destroyed in a few minutes, and all fortresses must be subterranean structures. In practice, battles would have to be fought in the air, and the survivors would be accepted as irresistible masters. But the more experienced a man of science is, the more he doubts the possibility of making an aerial machine independent of the wind, or of using balloons in war, except as he would use steeples or other high points of observation. To all appearance, if the human race continues to want to fight—and it will do so, if we may judge from the analogy that Christianity has not extirpated either police or street, rows—they must do it as they did in the Year One, by throwing stones at one another as hard as they can. The stones will grow very big, and be impelled with ever-increas- ing force, but the essential idea of the machinery of war will be stone-throwing, after all. We are not glad of it, for every improve- ment in war has diminished actual slaughter, till a modern field of Chalons holds 10,000 bodies instead of 300,000, and the com- parative shortness of campaigns is the greatest of the few mitigations of war as yet discovered. We sometimes fancy a three weeks' war as bad as a war of three months, and forget that, though the number of men slain in battle may be as great, the number of men slain iu hospital will be four times less. Engineers who use dynamite might take a city in six days before which an old General would have lost 100,000 men, mainly from disease.
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