War in Future.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7063, 24 August 1894, Page 4

War in Future.

Mn Akchidai.d Forbes, writing m Scribner's Magazine, pictures the horrors of the next great war thus : — " Tt is virtually impossible that anyone can have accurately pictured to himself tho scene m its fulness which the noxi, £reat battle will present, to a bewildered and shuddering world. We know the elements that will constitute its horrors ; but we know them only, as it were academically. Men have yet to be thrilled to the heart by the wemlness of wholesale death inflicted by missiles poured from weapons tho whereabouts of which cannot be discerned because of the absence of powder .smoke. Nay, if Dr Weiss's recently invented explosive, of which great things liavo been predicted, is to be brought into use iv the German army, there may no longer be any powder, tho 'villainous saltpetre' superseded by the more devlish ' fatty substance of a brownish colour.' The soldier of the next war must steel the heart- to encounter the deadly danger incident to the explosion of shells iilled with dynamite, melinite, ballistite, or some other form of high explosive, m the midst of dense masses of men. The recent campaign m Matebeleland has informed us with a grim triumph of the sweeping slaughter the | Maxim gun can inflict with its mechanical stream of bullets. Quick-tiling field-guns are on the eve of superseding the type of cannon m use m the horse and field batteries of to-day. All these instruments are on terra fir ma, if that be of any account. But if there is anything m the story of Edison's invention of a ilying machine for military purposes which can be so Steered as to catty aud drop with accuracy five hundred pounds of explosive material at a given point, or to shed on an army a shower of dynamite, then death incalculable may rain down as from the very heavens themselves. The only type of new weapon, the results of the tire from which have been actually tested on the battle field, is the Mannlicher, which was used to a considerable extent m the Chilian civil war of 1891. As ia generally known, thfi eight millimetre projectile which the Mannlicher throws is much lighter and of much flatter trajectory than any of the old large bullets. Owing to its higher velocity and pointed shape, its powers of perforation is extraordinary. In the matter-of-fact language of Bardeleben, owing to the immeuse velocity of the Mannlicher bullet and its small surface of contract, it meets with little resistence m striking, causes little commotion of the neighbouring parts, has no time to stretch the various tissues it eucounters, and merely punches out a hole, carrying the contused elements before it clean out of the wound, without seriously damaging the surrounding wall of track. 'Hie now obsolete bullets fired from great distances and striking a bone, frequently glanced off or rebounded. This will occur no louger ; the new long ranged projectile, if it strikes at all, has sufficient force to pass through, cutting any vessels or organs it may meet m its path. It is, therefore, all the more deadly. Whereas the accepted estimate of casualties m modern warfare has been m the ratio of about four men wounded to one killed, the percentage m the Chilian fighting is authentically given as four killed to one wounded. This ghastly proportion will probably not maintain itself iv future battles on a larger scale ; but there can be no doubt that the lighting of the future will be deadlier than the past. Yet the properties of the new bullet are not entirely lethal, although it will slay its thousands and tens of thousands. Its characteristic of absence of contusion, which contusion from the old bullet frequently stayed the bleeding of injured vessels, must result m more frequent deaths from hemorrhage, more especially m the inevitable lack, m the future, of prompt surgical intervention* But the wounds it causes, if they do not produce immediate death, or speedy dissolution from hemorrhcige, are expected to be more amenable to treatment than those which were occasioned by the old bullet." Mr Forbes calculates that when the first great battle of the next great war is fought a million combatants will be m the field. On the percentage of IS7O, and putting aside altogether the effects of the recent developments m manhurting, the casualties will exceed 140,000. According to ratios which he has calculated, of this number 35,000 would be slain, 70,000 slightly wounded, and 00,000 severely wounded. It follows that, according to present arrangements, apart from the killing of the bearers themselves during the battle, surgical assistance would be wanted for 105,000 wounded, aud hospital accommodation for some 70,000. "To cope adequately with the vast aggregate of human suffering is obviously impossible." WHAT WILL HAITEN ? Mr Forbes draws a picture of what he thinks will happen when the " bearer organisation" has broken down. Soldiers will have to think less of the " amenities" of war : — "The conquerer of the future, if he accepts the old-time conventional burden of his adversary's wounded, will become its victim, lie will not accept the incubus. Is it to be imagined that the victor m such circumstances will think twice even about his own wounded, let alone the wounded of the other side 'I aSo. He is m the field, not to be a hospital nurse, but to follow up his advantage by hammering on the enemy who has departed, leaving his own wounded behind, and who may come back again i to-morrow to strike him, while clogged m the live and dead debris of yesterday's battle. The victor will hasten away to overtake or hang on the skirts of the j vanquished army, leaving the wounded of both sides to be dealt with as may be possible by such surgeons as he can ' afford, m view of future contingencies, J to leave behind, and to the ministrations of cosmopolitan amateur philanthropists of the Ked Cross and kindred organisations. For there will be no more military bearer companies ; m the hunger for fighting men the thousand bearers per army corps of the present will have been incorporated into a strong brigade, with arms m their hands and a place m the fighting field. The prospects seems terrible. No doubt it is this terrible prospect which keeps war still m the distance. But Mr Forbes suggests that some features of the apparent neglect of the wounded may mitigate the gloom. The present " hustling" of the wounded man off the field often does him harm ; and if he lay for twenty-four hours apparently neglected, he might be better off, and certainly no worse ; — "All men conversant with war know instances of the extraordinary tenacity of life m wounded men who have received no attention. Segur's well-known story of the man wounded at Borodino having been found alive by the army returning from Moscow has been discredited. But my comrade and myself found on the 6fth day after the battle of Sedan a bounded Frenchman walking rthout m a sequestered part of the battlefield, not indeed with sprightliness, but without evidenceof debility ; yet his lower jaw had been shot away, a wound which precluded him from eating solid food. I also found on the third day after the battle of Nov. 30, 1870, on the east of Paris, m weather so bitter that sentries were actually frozen to death on their posts, a nest of three wounded Frenchmen lying ia a hollow, not starved to death, nut frozen to death, but pretty hungry and quite alive. I may eVen dare to go so far as to hold that, at all events jn the British service, m small wars the soldier is coddled to the extent of being really deteriorated by overtenderness of treatment. He has an anaesthetic admin- j isttred when the top joint of his little | finger is b&ing taken off, he haß hypodermic injections when he bag a twitch of

pain ; he is treated with champagne, with all sorts of delicious extras, and everything that can make a man reluctant to own to convalescence."