THE MECHANISM OF WAR.

New Zealand Mail, 17 September 1902, Page 29

THE MECHANISM OF WAR.

“Tho Mechanism of War.” By ‘‘Lmes--1 man;’ author of ‘‘‘Words by an '. Eye Witness.” Wm. Blackwood •led Sons, Edinburgh and London. S and ¥?. Mackay, Wellington. , With the exception of chapter MIL, which deals with tlie staff, the volume from the pen of this graphic rater and military expert is a reprint of a series of essays addressed to the Spectatoi. “One need not bo a Scotsman to be. subject to the fascination of machinery,” the author observes, and so the majesty of controlled force and movement, the ordered swing and play of a mass of apparently disorderly parts and pieces, tlie terrific strength, most c* all perhaps the awesome gentleness, of vast masses of revolving and plunging metal are regarded as typical of the machinery of war; and of all a nation’s belongings nothing is surely more comparable to a great machine than its army, nothing with body and soul more similar. “In both the body is of many, yet homogeneous parts, trivial and immense, rouud and square, immobile and for incessant movement —with but one great end and aim, to work smoothly with each other for a common purpose, and at the command of one intelligence; liable, moreover, to failure from the same causos—lack of care, ill-adjust-ment of the parts, and material of indifferent temper. And as for the soui of machines and armies, it is their peculiar possession. The soul of dormant strength, unrecognisable until the word conies to set it in motion, inimitable then, more wonderful in its purposefulness than the wild soul ot the purposeless tempest, with more significance in its inertness than that of the awful old Kraken sleeping on the waves'. Yes, a machine of any sort is a thing to pause and ponder over, and —if its purpose be vita!—earnestly to consider and learn down to its minutest rivet and bearing. For if these arc at fault- the whole contrivance must suffer a disability not always, so tlie engineer will'd:ell you, proportionate to the size of the weakness. A loose rivet, and the whole frame may’ shake, a rusty bearing, and the great driving crank will wear out something which should not bo worn out, shrieking and scraping instead of plunging with smooth oily power to its work.” The army is the nation and the individual must stand up for national existence as ho would for his purse or watchchain.

But the hook is not all imagery and style. It contains the narration of incident thrilling with excitment. Its pages are brightened with many an anecdote to illustrate the theme of the book. There is also manifest a clever handling of a battle scene and tlie impressionist- picture is Turnerian in vividity. It.is not sound reasoning to draw far reaching general conclusions from a single fact, but the ordinary reader will rather appreciate than condemn the optimistic spirit of the writer and applaud the indomitable pluck of the Britisli fighting machine. The writer narrates a conversation he had with an American correspondent after Colenso. •

“ ’Twas no defeat,” said I “see how the men come back!” For lino upon line of slow-moving soldiers was rolling up the slope and over its round back into bivouac, like au army corps marching past on Salisbury Plain. The Yankee looked at the crawling ranks, then back at tlie haze-liung kopjes, from which a heavy boom still throbbed occasionally, then lie looked at me, and though there was a twinkle in his eye, if lie had not been from Chicago I would have sworn 1 saw a tear. “Well, sir,” he said,“this army steamed out this morning like a machine to take those hillocks, and now it is coming back more like a macbine than over; but it hasn’t got those hillocks!” That is the American and the woman’s view of the matter—results, “Wliat have you got?” not “What liavo you done but it is not the English national view.

To Englishmen war is still a romance and _it is a remarkable trait in the Anglo-Saxon character that it conjures up victories out of defeats. Britons never know when they are beaten. But to foreign generals all this is.very unpractical and absurd. The German or the Muscovite would liavo given up the Transvaal war if they had suffered tho defeats of Magersfontein, Colenso, Tugola and Spion Kop. Not so the “Britisher and his machine. The last ounce niust he taken out of it hut tho position must he won.

The British army machine :« not so perfect, however, in tho eyes of “Linesluan” that lie U unable 1o discover sonic of its defects;' hut ve.Jinve not space

to make further quotations from this stimulating, -'thoughtful -and ably written work on the British army as a-fight-ing machine.