WORLD PEACE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 103, 3 May 1932, Page 7

WORLD PEACE

THE REAL REMEDY

IMPENETRABLE FRONTIERS

HDDELL-HAET'S KEY

It is natural that, the political situation apart, a cloud of doubt and distrust hangs over the Disarmament Conr ference. For mathematical arguments on armament formulae are not morally improving, and fractions lead all too easily to friction. No method of assessing armed force in terms of figures is likely to satisfy all parties, writes Captain B. L. Liddell-Hart .in the Jjondon "Daily Telegraph."

To take one of the chief issues— practical agreement between France' and Germany over land armaments has as yet been brought "no closer. Points of view remain unreconciled, and seem almost irreconcilable.

But are we to admit that no solution of the problem of land armaments is possible? Must armie3 'remain a menace to neighbouring countries? As preliminary to* an, answer, let us face the real issues which divide France and Germany on the" question of land disarmament.

Franco claims, and feels,' that the present scale of her army is necessary to assure her against; a fresh invasion. Germany lias a growing sense of insecurity in face of, the "unlimited" armies of her neighbours, and a bitter sense of inequality. It appears tojme that there is a solution—and a simple one—to the essential problem of laud disarmament.

This problem is to make armies nonaggressive, to render them incapable of taking the offensive and of invading a neighbour's country with any prospect of snccess. If we can do this, armies become, :in fact as well as in name, a means of defence —a truly defensive or "police" force, which cannot cause alarm or disquiet abroad. THE SOLUTION. The'solution, is one that would seem to meet, and to reconcile, the chief points in both the French arid the German, case, and those points which j alone can command Tespect in other countries. The solution is simple, writ deep in the^ experience and conditions of modern warfare, but to realise its significance' we- must first understand the rear lessons. . After the triumph of the German army in 1870 the elder Moltke planned afresh to take the offensive through Lorraine in the1 event of war. In 1879 he tore tip this plan and decided to stay on the defensive against France. Why? Because this shrewd soldier realised that the new fortress barrier along the French frontier made an offensive almost hopeless. His successors came to the same conielusion. But in 1897 Schlieffen conceived the plan.of avoiding the barrier by going round it—through neutral Belgium. For there the fortified defences wore relatively poor, as they ■were alsoi along the Franco-Belgian frontier beyond. ;" _ ".■■■ The year 1914 came. The Belgians refused a free passage. What was the key that opened the gate? The German heavy artillery. The fortresses of Liege and Namur had fallen in turn before its blast. '■■-• ' But there was another weapon, still ifew in numbers, that soon restored the balance in favour of the defence. The machine-gun helped - to bring thesurging armies to a standstill, and as trenches ■•' grew the-machine-gun ensured that more should grow—and that armies should stay in them, unable to break the deadlock. The offensive was impotent. Field guns had little effect on an entrenched enemy. . So Heavy artillery was adapted to nse in the field, and multiplied. For the rest of the war attacks were only made possible, and mediocrely successful, by the use of masses of heavy artillery,|supplemented later by a new •weapon, the tank. 'Only by these two means could, the defensive obstacle formed by trenches and nmehine-guns be overcome. LESS DANGEROUS. This hard truth was perceived by most practical soldiers during the war —those at least who actually fought. Since the war it has been to some extent obscured by the professional soldier's preoccupation with technical details and by his indomitable optimism. But armies to-day are actually less capable of taking the offensive successfully than in 1918, because the proportion of machine-guns and light automatic firearms has increased, while heavy artillery has been reduced. Arid tanks have- not been added in numbers sufficient to retrieve this deficiency. I should be willing to lay odds' that failure awaits any army which takes the offonsive against an opponent adequately equipped with aufomatic firearms. . . . So long, however, as armies retain : rtheir "tin-openers," the possibility of aggression remains, even though the prospect is diminished. Professional . military advisers may still be found to hold out hopes of success to war-minded statesmen, militarily ignorant. Only by making the impotence of the offensive obvious beyond concealment can we remove this potential encouragement. • But to do this, and to seal the supremacy of the defensive on land, the nations have only to agree on two things—to abolish the heavy gun, and, as a secondary step, the heavy tank. For Germany such agreement is easy, as she has foregone and foresworn these two weapons since the Versailles Treaty was made. For France it should lie easy, because she would thus prove to the world that her army is maintained purely to safeguard her security. And if heavy guns and tanks are abolished, her new frontier defences •will automatically acquire an unsurpassable strength. If the nations agree to limit all artillery to a 4in calibre, fortification call make frontiers almost certainly impenetrable to invasion. For "to use light artillery against permanent fortiflcations, or even well-prepared field entrenchments, is like throwing pebbles pgainst a wall. Supplementary to this restriction would be one on the size of tanks. Here the question may be asked: "Why not the abolition of tanks?" The answer lies in the practical difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of distinguishing between tha armoured fighting vehicle we term a "tank" and the lighter type, usually but not always on •wheels instead of on tracks, which we call an "armoured car." The difficulty,! and absurdity, of any distinction of type has been increased by the development of small and handy tracked vehicles for moving machine-guns. These armoured machine-gun carriers are tanks in miniature. But they cannot break through fortified defences." OFFENSIVE AGENTS. Heavy tanks, in contrast, are essentially an offensive agent. Unlike heavy artillery, they are powerless against, fortifications. But just as heavy artillery are the means of smashing field entrenchments and •' wire entanglements, so heavy tanks are the means of breaking through these barriers. Another class of limitation which' has been proposed is that on the number of machine-guns and other small prms. Here the practical difficulties in