FAILURE OF NEW GUNS TO STOP WAR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2488, 5 July 1909, Page 8

FAILURE OF NEW GUNS TO STOP WAR.

The plea of every inventor of a new gun or explosive, that his invention will end all war by making it too frightful for humanity lo engage in, is disputed by States Councillor Ur von Bruns, who bases bis calculations on the proportion of killed and wounded shown by the Governin' 1 !;! records of the Russo-Japanese War. Writing in the Deutsche Revue (Berlin) he takes up the assertion of von Bloch in his celebrated book on war that ‘in Ib.a future the loss of soldiers through rifle and artillery lire will be doubled and trebled.’’ To this Ur von Bruns replies that “on the contrary the improvement in the manufacture of arms will render necessary such alterations in the tactics of battle as will bring about a diminution in the number of the killed and wounded.” Bloch's prediction was made before the war in Manchuria, while von Bruns has the figures of killed and wounded to support his statements. He writes; — "The loss in killed and wounded, in proportion to the number engaged, was -as high in the Manchurian campaign as in the bloodiest battle in the War of 187071, on the German side. The proportion of those who died on the field of battle is much higher than in previous wars (the Cnino-Japanese, the Turkish-Greek, tha American-Spanish, and the Boer wars). The proportionate number of those seriously wounded or laid up by their injuries is much smaller than in previous wars. The proportion of those slightly wounded is much higher than in previous wars. More than a tenth of the wounded were able to return to tlie ranks, and onehalf of them returned to active duty at the expiration of three months." The idea which is said to have inspired Richard Jordan Gatling in inventing his famous weapon, namely, that he might make battles shorter and more fatal to combatants, and war intolerable and eventually impossible, is illusory, declares Ur von Bruns. He summarises his reasons as follows: "The expectations entertained by certain friends of peace that war, with all its inhuman horrors, will be rendered impossible in the future, through the terrific destructiveness of improved weapons, are proved to be utterly groundless. The results which we have stated above, gathered from the experience of soldiers employing the most modern arms, testify to this fact. The long-distance artillery and musket fire, even though their employment in battle causes a higher total of combined dead and wounded, render fewer of these latter permanently disabled. It is on this ground that the records of past history are repeated in our own time, for in the great battles of the nations, in the lapse of many centuries uti to this day, the proportion of those killed has not become any greater in spite of the improvement made in the manufacture of arms.”