THE GREAT MILITARY MECHANICS.
TWO incidents of very different importance recorded this week once more suggest the question whether a man who applies his genius to the improvement of weapons of destruc- tion can fairly be considered a benefactor to his race. That a soldier can be so considered, under certain conditions, we should contend strongly, as strongly as that war, also under certain conditions, may be justifiable; but does be who improves methods of killing render a service or a dis- service to his kind? Germany and England both apparently decide on the former reply. So highly does Germany honour Herr Krupp, the king of all makers of cannon, that he is treated in the most aristocratic State in Europe as a great personage; and it has been announced this week that he is the richest individual in Prussia. He pays Income-tax on a quarter of a million a year, a fortune unknown in Germany among private individuals, and actually greater than the sum returned by the Frankfort representative of the Rothschllds, or by the dictator of the Berlin Bourse, Herr Bleichroder. So greatly does England, on the other hand, honour Sir Joseph Whitworth, the brilliant mechanician, who, after inventing the "true plane," and constructing instruments for measuring to the millionth of an inch—instruments which alone render the exact reduplication of fine machinery possible—devoted his great powers almost exclusively to the perfecting of weapons of war, that his death is treated as a national calamity, and his funeral is attended or recognised by some of the most honoured names in the land. Nobody, in truth, will doubt that the reply is favour. able; but the grounds for the decision are by no means equally visible at a glance. It does not seem a priori that human happiness can be much increased by an increase in the means of killing human beings, nor is it certain that a restriction of those means to wealthy Governments, or at least to organised Governments, is altogether beneficial. The world owes a great deal to the right, br rather to the power of insurrection, which lies at the root of human freedom ; and Herr Krupp, Sir Joseph Whitworth, and their rivals have almost taken that power away. No crowd, however brave, even when composed of dis- ciplined men, can now fight regular soldiers. Insurgents cannot obtain artillery of the modern kind, for only Governments store, or can store, the necessary projectiles ; and if rioters can obtain muskets, they cannot secure the millions of cartridges necessary for their effective use. Even in a city, gmoutiera cannot pass through that dreadful sweep of leaden spray with which a modern regiment protects its position ; and they could no more face well-served breeohloading cannon, than they could face an outpouring of accurately directed thunderbolts from the sky,—an " improvement," by the way, in war now quite within the range of scientific foresight. Many accidental circumstances, especially the increase of wealth which makes revolt too injurious, and the great leniency of modern Govern. meats, have concurred to conceal the truth in all its fullness ; but it may be questioned whether in Europe a popular riming unsupported by an army is any longer possible. Experienced soldier's doubt whether even England could not be held down by a resolute army possessed of full arsenals, and it may be taken as certain that ten thousand men in possession of adequate batteries on Hampstead and at Sydenham, would hold the nn. drilled population of London entirely at their mercy. They could, in fact, reduce London to a heap of rains in twelve hours. We doubt if this generation will see again a rising even in Paris, unless favoured by a portion of the soldiery ; and in any open province of Europe, an insurrection would be a sense- less defiance of irresistible force. All Catalonia would not be so dangerous to Madrid as one regular brigade. This is a great change, only beneficial because for the moment the enemy to be dreaded threatens civilisation and freedom from below, and not from above. The Kings or Dictators of the future may yet oppress terribly, especially through inequitable taxation. Immunity when battle is over is a terrible addition to the power of an invader, and we may yet see a conqueror disarm Europe, and hold it down with his scientific weapons as completely as ever the knightly caste of feudal times held down the French or the German peoples. Men say—we have said it ourselves—that there is compensation to be found for this in the extinction of the danger from barbarians; but that confidence is a little premature. We shall know more about it when the Chinese have learned to make weapons of precision, and begin to roll forward armies which can destroy as well as those of Europe, and can afford to expend five thousand men a day besides. Civilisation is for the moment clad in enchanted armour ; but suppose that Pekin, or Mecca, or Samarcaud forges Excalibnrs successfully ! There is nothing whatever to prevent their doing it, except want of knowledge ; and a China- man with a repeating-rifle which he knew fully how to use, would be a Frankenstein against whom the human race might be obliged to unite in order to destroy him. We assume too rapidly, in spite of our experience of dynamite, that our scientific weapons will always be in Christian, or at least responsible hands, and that the passion for universal domination will never seize a race able to utilise picric acid, or to manufacture the awful " air-guns," howitzers throwing 200 lb. of dynamite by force of compressed air, over which the American
marine artillerists are now laying their heads together. They talk, it is said, of " erasing " a fort, and though there are some singular limitations to the power of explosives, we may take it for granted that their makers have not uttered their last word yet. No explosion has been recorded of late years at Essen, and Herr Krupp has manufactured some terrible things.
The slaughter in modern war is no doubt less in proportion to the men engaged than in ancient war, and Gravelotte was a thinly peopled graveyard beside Chilons after Attila's defeat ; but is that due to modern weapons, or to a change in the feeling of soldiers, and in the objects of campaigning P The object of Aetins was to extirpate a race, and no Hun hoped for mercy; but no soldier now wants to kill out his opponents. A massacre is a misfortune to him. if they will only yield and disarm, his enemies make capital taxpayers, and massacre has become a rare incident even of Asiatic warfare. The Soudaneee would have extirpated us all if they could; but a civilised General gives quarter, and has not even the inclination to pile up a pyramid of human heads. That a fresh Nadir Shah is improbable or impossible is owing to a change of feeling, not to the labours of Herr Krupp; and the change might have come without the invention either of exploding shells or of weapons of pre- cision. Victors are not more humane because they are irre- sistible, but because they have other ends to attain to which a measure of humanity is indispensable,—ends like taxes, willing obedience, and good report in the ears of possible historians. It is Christianity, and the opinion it has developed, which have softened war, not science. No; the only great improvement with which we can credit the scientific mechanicians who devote themselves to war is that they make war short; and even that is -conceded to them on the basis of very little experience. One of the three greatest of recent wars was short; but in neither of them is it certain that the shortness was not partly an accident. Austria gave way at once before the needle-gun, and the differ- ences among her own soldiers, and the lenient terms offered to her acceptance; but the great waves of Germans and Russians nearly broke upon Paris and Plevna, and had the spade been used as it should have been need, both wars might have been tong. It takes months still to capture a well-defended earth- mound. The next war may be an engineers' war; and if it is, with the frightful numbers now engaged, the terrible expendi- tura caused by the mechanicians, and the daily sacrifice of life through the perfection of destroying machinery, the human race may not be found to have gained much, except, indeed, from the change of sentiment which forbids the sack of -cities, or the desolation of a province, in order that an enemy should not benefit by its supplies. We shall not see the devas- tation of a Palatinate again, we suppose; but that is a result of improved morals, and not of developed mechanical or chemical destrnctives. That gunpowder made the world happier may be admitted, because it rid us of feudalism—that is, of the dominance of a caste of armoured horsemen, irresistible, or nearly irresistible, except by their own kind—but we must wait for evidence before we pronounce all recent improvements good. They certainly have not stopped war in the least, or impeded the development of that disposition to regard soldiering as the first duty of man which has quite recently fallen upon the European races. Herr Krupp and Sir Joseph Whitworth have had their way for a quarter of a century, and the world is more heavily armed, more disposed to go to war, and more tolerant of a law of pure force, than it has been since Napoleon was chained like Prometheus to his rock. We have ironclads instead of sailing- ships, and the military officers of Europe know more ; but we are not sure that the West, which alone has made the change, has benefited in happiness thereby. It certainly has not gained in wisdom, or five millions of picked men would not be listening as they are listening for orders to begin what may well prove the largest and longest killing-match of modern times. On the whole, and pending farther information from experience, we prefer to honour Sir J. Whitworth for his measuring instrn. ments rather than for his improvements in the rifling of game.
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