THE NEW INSTRUMENT OF WAR.
EVEN to those who were most sanguine the results of
the organised employment of aeroplanes in the French Army manceavrea in Picardy were a surprise. According to the testimony of all foreign observers, a new instrument of wonderful potency has been added to warfare, and some of the observers think that the innovation must mean a revolu- tion in the methods of war. If aeroplanes are as useful for various military purposes as the French manceuvres seem to prove, it is clear that something possibly more important than the invention of gunpowder, or the application of steam to ships, or the invention of torpedoes and submarines has been accomplished. A new military force has been intro- duced which operates in a universal element. Formerly one used to think of ships as free of the whole world, because the sea leads everywhere; and one's thoughts, as though to appreciate the immensity of this freedom, would turn pityingly to the spectacle of an army fettered to the country in which it found itself unless it were lifted out of its territorial prison and transported elsewhere across the seas. But the freedom of ships is as nothing compared with the freedom of aeroplanes which move indifferently over land and water. A tribute of admiration is due to the French, who have organised the employment of these new instruments of war with extraordinary promptitude and enterprise. We read that the discoveries of the where- abouts of troops made by officers who were carried in aero- planes caused plans to be hastily and radically changed; that a kind of paralysis seized one General, who recognised that his trump card of secrecy had been torn from his hand ; and that it has ceased to be true that the destruction of railways, the blocking of roads, the cutting of wires, and the inter- ference with wireless telegraphy prevent rapid communication between distant troops and their headquarters.
It is a creditable desire in English people not to be over- awed into taking a sensational view of novel instruments of warfare. It is well to be composed in the face of new dangers. But we are very sure that in this case Englishmen are not in any danger of jumping to rash conclusions. Many people seem to assume that such an acrobatic performance as flying must for a long time to come, if not always, be confined to a small class, and that there is no prospect of armies employing aeroplanists in numbers comparable to those of their cavalry and artillery arms. The French manoeuvres give no warrant for this scepticism. It is said that there were sometimes twenty aeroplanes in the air at the same time. When we remember that only a couple of years ago we were recording the first aerial journeys of a mile or so, and when we compare those early experiments with the sight of a party of French airmen going off with despatches like a flight of carrier-pigeons, we must admit that we are deprived of any particular right of surprise at whatever achievements may follow. When we have acknowledged the dangers of flying, we have to confess that an equally obvious feature is its comparative simplicity. In a letter to the Daily Mail of Monday Mr. G. Holt Thomas related how one of M. Panlhan's pupils flew from St. Cyr to Grandvilliers —about the same distance as that from London to Man- chester—a fortnight ago, with only two stops, although it was only the eighth time he had left the ground in an aeroplane and the first time he had flown across country.
The simplicity, then, must be granted. The next point to consider is whether an aeroplane is very vulnerable. Opinions were open till the French manoeuvres, and some recent experiments in England, appeared to show that it suffers hardly any risk from gun and rifle fire. An aeroplane sweeping past at forty, fifty, or sixty miles an hour must be as difficult to hit as a driven grouse fired at with a rifle. " Yes," it will be said, " but more than one gun or one rifle will be turned on the aeroplane. Several batteries of guns and some thousands of infantry may fire at it simultaneously, and then it will come down." Against this we have to remember that an enormous percentage of the superficial area of an aeroplane is not a vital part. The planes might be peppered through and through, the airman might be hit in several places, even the engine and the propellor might be hit, and still the aeroplane would not be stopped. Mr. Holt Thomas says that there is only one part of the machine which is really vital, and that is the magneto. If that were hit, the airman would certainly be brought to ground, for his engine would stop. But, again, it has to be said that an airman who found himself unexpectedly under fire could rise in a few seconds to a height where he would be perfectly safe from either gun or rifle fire. His observations would be interrupted no doubt, and in order to observe accurately he might have to plane down again into the zone of fire. But that is no worse than happens to troops nowadays ; cavalry often come under the worst fire when carrying out a reconnaissance.
Thus far we have seen that flying is simple enough for men to be quickly trained in the art, and that aeroplanes are almost immune from the existing means of destruction. How, then, will the new instrument of war be countered, for of course it will have to be countered in some way P We think there can be only one answer. Aeroplanes must fight aeroplanes. We do not know whether the passengers in them will use rifles or a small quick-firing gun, or whether other means of offence will be allowed by the future practice of civilised nations. At all events, the laws which govern the manoeuvring of aeroplanes will certainly be the same in essence as those which govern the handling of ships and troops,—speed and superior weight of metal will probably gain the day. Perhaps we should say that the self-elevating capacity of an aeroplane will be the most important thing, for in a struggle between two aeroplanes the one at the greater height would have the commanding position,—more important even than the windward position in the old days of sailing ships. Possibly ramming, which is no longer practised by ships, will be revived by aeroplanes.
In one of his letters to the Daily Mail Mr. Holt Thomas estimates the cost of building and manning twenty aeroplanes at £35,000. This is a small sum compared with the cost of building a single battleship. No Secretary for War would be justified in refusing to spend such a sum if he were really convinced that by the absence of aeroplanes we were running a risk. We must take into account not only the practical value of aeroplanes in themselves (which, for the purpose of argument, we may regard as a still unproved, and even a negligible, quantity), but the moral effect they are likely to produce on an army against which they are used, but which has no response to offer. No nation can afford to remain long behind its competitors in military invention.
At Sadovra, the Prussians may have been superior to the Austrians in most respects, but the absolutely crushing nature of the Prussian victory is explicable only by the fact that the Prussians used the " needle-gun " and the Austrians did not. We cannot say whether the construction of aeroplanes is a matter in which we are justified in waiting for more experi- ence. It is a question for experts. In the case of submarines we were slow in getting to work, but we have more than retrieved the lost ground. In the case of dirigible balloons we have been similarly slow. But it may be that aeroplanes will eventually supersede dirigibles by making it impossible for them to keep the air, and it will be found that we have only avoided spending money in vain. All we can say is that an unusually strong obligation rests on the War Office to watch the development of aeroplanes most carefully, and, if necessary, to spend money on building them promptly and ungrudgingly.
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