FUTURE WAR

Evening Star, Issue 21992, 30 March 1935, Page 20

FUTURE WAR

THE PART OF SCIENCE TRUTH ABOUT MODERN WEAPONS We are used to having our marrows frozen by tales of astounding gases which could be dropped by aeroplanes, Hying over the tops of houses, into city streets. I have excellent authority for saying that such a project is almost impracticable. The only successful gas which has either been used in practice or tested under suitable conditions is not a gas at all, but a heavy oil (writes Professor A. M. Low). So-called mustard gas is comparatively harmless unless it can be spread suitably. There would be no difficulty in having dinner with a jug of mustard gas at one’s elbow, and if, inadvertently, a little were upset, several of , the bleaching powder solutions are simple and successful antidotes.

I do not say that a mass attack by gas-bombing planes would be pleasant, but all these things are relative. During the last war the total tonnage of bombs .dropped in London was, I believe, loss than fifty; the key to tlio situation was the number of men and guns locked up in or around London by the panicky behaviour of tho public. There arc very few occasions in an English climate when gas could be allowed to fall without rapid diffusion, and oven hydrocyanic gas, one of the most potent poisons known to tho chemist, it would bo extremely difficult to_ employ owing to the speed with which it would spread through the atmosphere without any added “help” from-wind or rain. Mustard gas is heavy, therefore it flows in clouds to a useful extent. POISONING WATER SUPPLY. It would be very difficult indeed to poison a water supply where a Ministry for Health insists upon the most careful analysis being taken at frequent intervals. There is not a vast number of bacteria suitable to enclose in a bomb, which would always survive the rapid spread caused by an explosion. To parachute a “ bottle of typhoid ” into the drinking water of half London in a few minutes is a feat which does not seem practicable, when viewed through other than the political eye. Thou wo hear terrible tales of guns which fire shells weighing many tons over distances of 100 miles. Is it, in fact, true that the damage done by such explosives varies in direct proportion to the weight of the bomb itself? Records prove that the contrary circumstance rules. It would require a fleet of aeroplanes like many flocks- of swallows to do much damage to London, and ;if every third building had a bomb dropped upon it the total effect might not be nearly as effectual as a few days of concentrated high explosives on welloccupied trendies. As long as the public is content to see might being made into right, it cannot complain if : a few houses are wrecked. If women proudly state that they wish to play a noble part beside their men, and that shell-manufacturing records in the Great War are evidence of this determination, they cannot complain of a little “ frightfulness ” by way of retaliation. . It is a rule of invention that tho most wonderful armour-piercing shell quickly results in the production of unpiercablo armour. So there seems to be no good reason why other great wars should not quickly reach, _ by a process of attrition, the condition of stalemate which wrecked so many people’s hopes in 1918. Wo all know that. passenger-carrying aeroplanes can be made into warlike ■ machines; but think how many would be required to land an enemy party in a small country such as England without immediate detection. Such a raiding attempt would be wiped out in a few hours. The unfortunate enemy could not carry anything very heavy in the way of machine guns. In my opinion we shall see much more effectual methods of psychological warfare within the next century at least. There is nothing to prevent the scene of a battle being broadcast or “ televised ” by the enemy when it feels sure of success. It would be comparatively simple to broadcast war. with all its sounds of horror and misery. Remember that a censorship in the present state of wireless knowledge would be useless. It is easy nowadays, for the broadcasting authorities to say, “ Wc do not wish the public. to listen to a murder trial or anything that might shock its respectability.” But an attackin'- force would have no such fears. TELLING THE WORLD. Without jamming nearly every station required for our own purposes no one could prevent some suitably situated high-powered transmitter from telling tho world of victories, explaining that St. Paul’s Cathedral would be set alight on November 5, and giving lurid details of an attempt to poison tho water supplies of great cities. A house-to-house search for receiving sets would be impracticable; very large numbers of people would believe every word, and still greater numbers would be in such alarm that their working efficiency would be enormously impaired. . • Without wireless, unless it be used to control high-flying aeroplanes and to direct them to enemy countries, there are abundant horrors to- satisfy tho most ardent soldier. The last war showed clearly that hand-to-hand fighting was by no means a thing of thq past, and gave us reason to imagine that light machine guns, new forms of fire-spraying machines, and perhaps jets of electrical chemical will call for the invention of protective armour of resistant masks. Lighting of tills character is almost certain to be protracted, and tilts inevitably implies subterranean work of every kind. _ I expect to find every class of electric burrowing machine, driven by large power stations at great distances, employed to tunnel under enemy trenches, and even to create a network of galleries through which mining operations could be conducted. To-day wireless control is supplied to battleships for target purposes, so that little stretch of the imagination is required to appreciate its use for tanks and other types of landtravelling automatic weapons. The ideal of every general staff is some kind of machine which enables it to sit in a dugout at a great distance. Doer, the most ostrich-liko of pacifists

imagine that the inventor of a successful death ray would be treated in the same fashion as a scientist who discovered a partial cure for consumption? Wo know very well that, although we may all bo pacifists at heart, no honour could be too high and no sum too great for the hero who produces a ray which will destroy human life. I admit that the possibility of this invention seems extraordinarily remote at the moment, but wo are studying shortwave wireless more and more every day. We are suggesting methods _by which radiation may be directed instead _of broadcast, and even from the signalling point of view alone the value of such an invention would bo inestimable. Take submarines. 1 recollect reading m a newspaper some time ago that a new period of prosperity was coming for a certain district, thanks to orders for submarines and guns which had been placed in the workshops. Few people seem to have seen the humour of this paragraph, but I am correct when I say that everybody’s, or nearly everybody’s, heart thrills to the sound of martial music, and that we still choose men of military experience and title for the majority of trusted posts. 1 see no falling off of the enthusiasm of women for brute force: rather is there a definite tendency on the part of the female to demand, equally with, the male, the right to fight with the finest weapons that could he chosen. ENCOURAGING PARTICIPANTS. It is not many months since the preliminary trials of a tank-cum-submarine were made in Europe. There seems no adequate reason why such vehicles should not climb up the seashore at some parts of our coastts and act as the advance guard of other atrocities to follow. But these are not novelties so paralysing as to prevent war. The only effect they have is to encourage participants to greater effort and to emulate these inventions by others of attack, for the reason that this is generally the only method of workable defence. There is nothing to prevent floating mines of colossal size being exploded by wireless from a distance at the right moment; it is a principle already tested successfully. These are the kind of scientific weapons to be faced rather than a chemical warfare against noncombatants. I believe that the problem of the future for countries owning colonies will be the maintenance of contact between themselves and their possessions, the keeping in touch with an army abroad, and not the protection of so-called civilians whose only desire is to be left in peace with their belongings. I am no believer in the altruistic claims made for those who have gained power by their own efforts. I am aware that there are other considerations than the desire for financial achievement; but the inevitable theory of relativity tells _mo that in a land where everyone lives upon unequal basis human endeavour must tell most people that they have not enough. I do not believe for one moment that there is any;one country in the world without its bureau of research for all that is new and terrible in death-dealing machinery. Thousands of the greatest brains in Britain are striving to make our methods of killing bettor than those 1 of others. No one is more willing than I to express a pious hope that education may ultimately justify all the pacts and agreements in the world; hut I cannot help noticing that policemen are chosen for the strength of their arms rather than, for their chess-playing ability.