TO DESTROY LONDON

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 57, 29 November 1924, Page 7

TO DESTROY LONDON

HOW MANY BQMBS WOULD BE REQUIRED? A PEACE CONGRESS DEBATE Pacifist circles assembled for the International Peace Congress in Germany were deeply stirred by the accounts that reached them of the great debate at The Hague on the disarmament question (says the “Observer’s” •_ Berlin correspondent). The meeting is of general interest to England, and to Londoners in particular. For Holland in its entirety-possesses something like the population of the area of Greater London, and for convenience sake, London and the possibility of the destruction of her inhabitants within a very few hours formed oue of the principal theses of the debate. The speakers represented many countries. It was a Dutch delegate in Geneva who urged complete world disarmament for safety’s sake, basing his argument on the plea that finds most favour in the strong pacifist circles of the small countries, Holland and Denmark. This maintains that complete helplessness, a moral weapon, is the best protection of the weak against the strong. He met with scant response, least of all from his own countrymen, for it is an open secret to-day that Germany’s original plan at the beginning of the Great War was to march through' Holland. She was ‘prevented from carrying out this plan owing to the superior efficiency and numbers of the Dutch over the Belgian army. General Snyder himself, who was responsible for the condition of this army, went on the platform as a matter of what he considered duty, against tho pernicious efforts of the pacifists to undermine a nation’s natural sense of self-protection. His opponent was a leading Democrat, Professor van Embden, who has been striving passionately for the cause of disarmament for the past year. This_ is a vital question to Holland, in view of her powerful neighbour, not of to-day, but for a hundred years hence. It is persistently repeated to-day on tlie Continent, though just as persist- . emtly questioned, that Edison is re-. sponsible for the statement that London’s whole population could be annihilated in a very few hours by the new Leweside gas in bombs thrown from not more than twenty to thirty aeroplanes. This, the principal argument of his pacifist opponent, the Dutch general proceeded to tear to pieces on the principle that never was a method of attack yet invented which did not almost immediately call forth successful counter-methods of defence. He based his thesis on the practical experiences of the Great War and on French writers, who have calculated that to gas London with complete success 33.000,000 kilogrammes of bombs would be necessary, hurled from 19,000 aeroplanes, each carrying 2000 kilogrammes of bombs. Ender the most favourable conditions it would take 200 pieces of aircraft eighty-five nights to carry odt their task successfully, and these conditions premise not only insufficient means of defence but consistently perfect weather for th© air fleet. . The Dutch artillery captain, Mass, who has studied air conditions in the French Army, computes the present French air strength at something between 250 and 300 heavy machines for bombardment purposes, of which some two-thirds only would be fit for immediate use. These could not carry more than 75,000 kilogrammes weight of bombs, and would b 6 totally incapable of destroying a whole great centre of population at one fell swoop. By the trine the proper number would be ready and equipped, it stands to reason that the defence of London, or Holland, as the case may be, must have reached a probably equal standard of efficiency. It is significant that whereas the pacifist spoke at great length in appreciative silence, the general’s audience was restive and interrupted continually. The whole affair, occurring at the moment when the new Zeppelin is pictured everywhere, has stirred German pacifist imagination to tho depths.