FIGHTING THEN AND NOW.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 8700, 20 December 1899, Page 4

FIGHTING THEN AND NOW.

LIRI'TESAST-COLONEL G. F. R. He.VDEKSO.V, in the November Bluckwood, makes some interesting compiuisons between the battles of to day uud those of years ago. The : former, lie says, differ as much from tlio 'alter as did those of Alma and Inkernian from Klodden Field. The quick-tiring lield nun, sweeping the ground witli a hail of 1500 shrapnel bullets at the rate of live niined rounds a minute is far superior to the smooth- lime cannon as the smooth. bore cannon to llie catapult. A few machineguns would have destroyed tho massed batteries of Napoleon before eveu the limbers were uuhcoked. High-explosive shells have turned walled cities into veritable death traps. The new powder lias entirely altered the aspect of tno battlo-

field. The assailant is shrouded by no friendly veil of smoke, and all open ground is covered by the fire of unseen defenders to a distance outside tho limits of accurato vision. Nor have auxiliary appliances, as Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson points out, failed to muko corresponding improvement. Balloons, become a component part of every army, have but little in common uith the clumsy machines used a century since at Fleuris. Signalling, by fl-ig and heliograph, supplies a means of communication which renders tactical combinations fur simpler than in the days of Wellington. The telegraph, annihilating distance, has so altered the distance between time and space that principles of strategy which have held good sinco the campaigns of Alexander are no longer applicable ; while railways, pontoons, steamers, and compressed food-stuffs have greatly lightened tho difficulties of supply.