In short, the use at sea of the tactics of the Boers on dry land. It would be necessary for the attackers to have 637 men at the start for every 100 attacked. The enemy will have a line of sharpshooters in front of his front, while the attackers will have nothing of the sort.
The English War Office should have known the opinions of the best continental authorities on the difficulty of attacking under modern fire. On the first day, the attacker must approach the enemy's artillery fire limit (that is, about 5 kilometers), and in the evening he must push forward small detachments - companies, for example - to the point where the infantry fire takes place effective (say, 2 kilometers). And the importance of the perfect modern rifle the English may have learned from the history of the Chilean war.
CHAPTER IV
This is a question of the first importance, as if the causes arose from the new conditions of the continuation of the war. An episode from the war of 1877, mentioned in the Revue Militain Russe, is very instructive in this connection. A Turk, hidden among the branches of a tree, had already killed a considerable number of the enemy before his presence was betrayed by the smoke of his rifle.
Nevertheless, it will be more necessary than ever for the English army, if it is to take the offensive, to gain ground not only on its own, but on the whole country that stretches before it. This must ultimately lead to an attack, if it is impossible to force the enemy to come out of his fortifications to defend an essential point, the fall of which into the hands of the enemy would have a decisive effect on the war. as for example in France, Paris, in Germany, Berlin, and so on. The capital Pretoria is not of great importance due to the primitive nature of the Transvaal government.
But if this is the case with professional officers, what will become of volunteer and militia officers, whose technical education is based on past experience and has long since been forgotten. It is interesting to read the comments on the tactical attack in the "Report on the Progress of Military Art" edited by the German Headquarters. Other authoritative military writers who speak of the future of war predict that it will bring no definite result at all.
The superiority of the German artillery and also the French infantry armed with the chassepot is shown. Despite the desperate efforts of both armies, neither side could defeat the other in the former simple sense of the word.
CHAPTER V
Let us quote the opinion of a well-known expert in military affairs, a participant in the war of 1877, the current Russian Minister of War, General Kuropatkin. In the internal consciousness of the troops, in one section or another, the conviction of the impossibility of holding out arises. Thus, a battalion which loses 200 men in the course of a ten-hour battle has, under many circumstances, a better chance of holding its position in its attack than a battalion which has lost fifty men in the course of five minutes.
The sum of the physical forces in the second battalion is greater than in the first, but the sum of the moral forces is less compensatory in the second than in the first.' That's true. But in Magersfontein the Highlanders lost as many as 670 in three minutes. This nervousness increases especially during night attacks, which occurred so often in the Transvaal war.
Equally unjust in most cases is the punishment for the failure of night attacks and for the mistake of firing against one's own troops. It is the difficulty presented in frontal attacks in the face of fire that gave rise to the idea of attacking the enemy under cover of night. Furthermore, I set forth several reasons why the best-led troops in future warfare may be exposed to fire from their side, either in night attacks or because of the great distances and dispersed formations of modern battles. .
This, of course, is dangerous in the highest degree, and with all fairness General Skugarevski says: "Look at the results of military shooting in peacetime. And so we again see that we are dealing with the new conditions of war, and that only in the most exceptional cases, such accidents arise from negligence.
CHAPTER VI
In my work on the war, as well as in the lectures I gave in The Hague on the occasion of the Peace Conference, I have pointed out that a great service would be done to the cause of peace if research were made into the consequences of the war. new war conditions. The changes which have taken place from the economic point of view have produced a situation so different from that of the past that the necessity of breaking new ground is generally recognized in everything concerning the interests of commerce and colonial and other conquests. should be the subject of serious study.” This last proposition I have advanced in view of the dangers which may arise from the obscure ideas which exist as to the advantages to be derived from the conquest of colonies of one country. ~tnte by someone else.
I am fully convinced that if such an investigation had been made and military circles had tried to penetrate to the heart of the matter, the present war would not have broken out. Soon after the publication of the German translation of my work in the spring of last year, a considerable number of copies were sent to the Transvaal, and subsequently an abridged translation of the book was published in Dutch. He must say that if before the outbreak of the war there were reasons that made it impossible to carry out an investigation, then such have now disappeared.
Before the war, it was difficult to identify the technical problem for research, as the Boers' tactics were not yet revealed at the time. An investigation is all the more indispensable because every day that the war continues the English opponent, initially no more than a horde of civilians, becomes more efficient, and, as the press reports tell us, the Boers have begun to employ one of the three farmers. the most terribly dangerous means of defense: the wire entanglement. It has been found impossible to destroy the wire entanglements even with Brisant shells, and it is easy to imagine what moral effect must be produced on the English troops when they are stopped by these wires and exposed to the fire without defense. of the.
I have in my hands a collection, made for the purpose of preparing material for lectures and study, of the latest statistics of military shooting on pol.vgons, showing all the differences between the conditions for attackers and defenders, with the different weapons are used. of attack and defense, the three old weapons, namely infantry, cavalry and artillery, and the new developments, rapid-firing batteries, high-explosive grenades and trench instruments. With the great mass of intelligent forces at the disposal of the vVar Bureau, and with their excellent aptitude for such experiments, it would be possible to build in the course of two or three weeks specimens of the defenses employed in the service of the Boers, and to carry out the shooting experiments, and make the necessary comparisons of fire in attack and defense.
CHAPTER VII
But if, in consequence of the entirely new conditions which are revealed in regard to warfare, the end cannot be reached at all, or only after destruction so terrible that the object of the war has lost its value, we find ourselves in the presence of eutirel)' new circumstances . The military authorities of the continent thoroughly understand that all military progress has been to the advantage of the defense as a result of the radical transformation of such fundamental elements as the armament of the troops, the methods of fortification and the composition of armies. Other authors, no less authoritative, declare that the conclusion of peace will not come as a result of victories too difficult to win, but as a result of the exhaustion of the opposing forces.
One may say that a war could not be ended in any other way than by the complete destruction of one or the entire exhaustion of both belligerents." Another German general, V på Blume, who took part in the war of 1870, and who has a of the highest posts in the German army, in a work of his which has just appeared, comes to. Long before the publication of my book, "The War of the Future," I had weighed in detail. at the entry into the war with the Transvaal this side of the question has not been sufficiently considered, it seems necessary for England to alter her plan of !J.Ction.
34; The famous sixteenth-century captain, Marshal Saxe, declared that "the art of war is shrouded in shadows, among which it is impossible to advance with a definite step." They have fallen into the error of considering the war of the present through the prism of the war of the past. But it will be objected that to give up tlte otioosi ve would mean the indefinite prolongation of the war.
But for this it is necessary that the mood of public opinion should be weaponized, and that the people should end the war by arbitration. It would be necessary to question the good Hense, the intelligence, and the nobler sentiments of the English people before he could admit that such a wise and humane procedure cannot be applied to a question which it is impossible to solve by arms under modern conditions.
