WAR IN MASSES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16847, 11 May 1918, Page 1 (Supplement)

WAR IN MASSES.

SOME HUMAN FACTORS.

BY BESSIE NINA WATTY. It "would seem that in this new offensive of the enemy the high commanders consider that to attack the opposing forces in masses is the only hope of final victory. In the olden days of battle one finds that if military history b reviewed that there are various forms of warfare. "War," §?ys Clausewitz, "is a perfect chameleon, because in each separate case it changes somewhat its nature." First, from its nature, an authority tells us, the object of war is always the same. We wish, as Clausewitz has already defined it, to impose our will on that of the enemy, by either annihilating or damaging him, or warding him off; or, maybe, we wish to force him to do or to give up what is to our advantage. Secondly, every combat is governed by the jaw of attack and defence. An action 1 outside th 3 limit of these two notions is altogether unthinkkable. And, thirdly, all actions in war are influenced by the physical, mental, and moral qualities of men Men Are Cheap To-day. _ From the commencement of this last terrific onslaught of the enemy he has sought to strike at his combatants in overwhelming numbers. Men to-day, as a result of the Russian mishap, are cheap with him. After all, men are only men, says he, and when a company or division is wiped out there is still another to fill the gap left by the bleeding and the dead. Men are but the factorsthe living machines to keep the ball a-rolling. But, unhappily for our enemy, the ball continues to roll longer than he intended or anticipated, and, however inflated he may be by his victories, the finality of the great clash of human flesh still trembles in the balance. To his undying regret and sorrow he has proved that " Britain's contemptible little army" is composed of the old breed still, who will hang on and worry until triumph is theirs, until wrongs are righted and the flags of Empires flutter legitimately in the four winds of heaven. Fritz is to have an awakening day. France had it. —whatever she may have brought to her —has emerged into the sunlight from a yoke that has ever been heavy and tiresome. When chaos has been dispelled and a Government formed that will work for the good of its people, Russia will commence to breathe freely and serenely. Economically, time passes without any vital difficulties to either fighting force. Both suffer inconvenience, but neither real physical pain. Whatever may be the theatre of war, there are but three factors —the object, the form of action, and human —which determine the permanent soul of war from which the immutable laws of the art of war must be deducted. Human Nature. What an invincible composition goes to make up the nature of fighting-men. Enemy and foe ! Both are warriors imbued with the old spirit of their forefathers. The enemy gets to grips with as great and daring a spirit as our own fine men and boysonly lie fights from the wrong standpoint— standpoint of ignorance. Enveloped with the spirit of militarism born and bred in him, he goes forth to battle at the word of his Emperor whose authority and autocracy has ever chained him beneath the yoke, and, enraged by the Im- j perial lies that the enemy is out to throttle and to doom his glorious Fatherland, Fritz is. inflated by hate and patriotism. Poor ignorant German soldier, pity him! Tq-day the Central Powers' last hope of Victory is in their numerical strength, but numerical strength has not proved to be the stronghold that might be expected. In the Russo-Japanese war in 1904 the armies "of . the Tsar , were many- times superior to the Asiatic side, but the spirit and the morale and the intelligence of the lafter were so far superior to the opposing force that they emerged from the contest easy victors. At the present moment a certain passage in the notorious von Bernhardi's book is of special interest. It reads :— If Germany is involved in war, she need not recoil before numerical superiority. But, so far as human nature is able to tell, she can only, rely on her being successful if she is resolutely determined to break the superiority of her enemies by a victory over one or the other of them before their total strength can come into action, and if she prepares for war to that effect, and acts at the decisive* moment in that spirit which made Frederick the Great seize the sword against a world of arms." Experience in the early stages of the war, when strong enemy forces were faced by weaker numbers, teaches us that superior numbers do not count for victory, and that Napoleon's dictufai is wrong, " that victory is on the side of the big battalions." Clever leadership ; superiority of troops mentally and morally; a sane, level-headed policy, with officers who inspire their men by their own courage and dash and faith—these are the forces that work for success. Bombast find arrogance has never yet led to victory. In the present stress of strife many of us feel daunted when we read of our own brave armies retreating, and still retreating, thinking in our own ignorance that this taking and holding of territory by the Mb. -y is our defeat, when in reality behind it all may lie a clear-sighted policy of our great generals, Foch and Ha?g, in whom the allied nations put their supreme faith and trust, and who, with the loyalty due to them by their soldiers and the allied peoples, will brine to the waiting massed the glorious, long-looked -for day of victory which means Freedom and Liberty and Honour for all the nations of the world, _ even to that nation which in pitiable ignorance drew the sword against civilisation on that never-to-be-forgotten day of August, 1914.