IN THE TRACKS OF NAPOLEON AND HINDENBURG-A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN WAR TACTICS

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 19, 22 January 1916, Page 14

IN THE TRACKS OF NAPOLEON AND HINDENBURG-A CENTURY'S CHANGE IN WAR TACTICS

The ifaofc that the Russians have once more assumed the offensive against the Hun hordes lends particular interest to the parallel.that has so frequently been drawn between tile invasion of the Czar's empire a-hundred years ago by "the French," tinder Napoleon and .the ' Germans under Hindenburg. ' This map "illustrates the two campaigns, and shows the difference between oldfashioned ways of making war and the new-iashioned -way. ■

Napoleon, at the head of an army of about 600,000 mixed troops, fought

across Prussia and "what is now Russian Poland, nearly 1,200 miles, in about 120 days"! He captured the ancient Russian: capital, Moscow, four months after .declaring war.

The •German army 'has conquered only 400 miles against Rugsja in sixteen months, •.compared with Napoleon's 1,200 miles in. four months.

It took JJappleon, at the head of his army, four days to go from Kovno to .Vilna. It took a German army tfiirtytwo days to the same distance.

Ajfewyears ago it was said that modern instruments of war were so deadly that there neter could be

another long war, that everybody would be shot to pieces in a few minutes and that- the Tar would be over.

Exactly the contrary is true, provided a nation has machinery for defence against the machinery with which the enemy attacks. It ia not a matter of men, chiefly. It is .a matter of machinery. »It is a question of mechanics more than of soldiers; of engineers more than of cavalry, of ships and guns more than of volunteers. <-

The German attack on Russia last year was made with about four times as many men as followed Napoleon, and with the finest of modern artillery. Bnt the Russians were prepared, with

trenches and field artillery, to make the German advance slow and costly. Thus, while Napoleon's army averaged ten miles a day, FieW-Marihal yon Hindenburg's, in Ws second and victorious attack on Russian Poland, advanced an aTerage of", less than tiro miles a day. As showing the supreme value of a navy in the defence of a. country, the capture of Rig* by the Kaeert torn and the advance of the entire Oerman army on St. Petersburg was presented last autumn by the defeat of Alps of the German navy in the Golf of Hi™ by Russian warships aided by British submarines.