TO-MORROW’S WAR

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4235, 24 January 1940, Page 9

TO-MORROW’S WAR

GERMAN LAYMAN’S STRIKING BOOK. ALLIED STRATEGY PREDICTED. (By Audax.) 4 As we near the beginning of the third month of the present “amazing” war our thirst for some cooling literary draught intensifies. We want to understand it all so much better than we do. To-day’s war is on so huge a scale and so far exceeds in technical preparation the conflict of 1914-18 that the average intellect is bewildered by the task of co-ordinating the thing in his own mind. Any thoroughly well acredited book which will make intelligible to us some at least of the vast network of that “total war,” which, in Ludendcrf’s phrase, is now in being, serves a high purpose of great value. Such a book is “To-morrow’s War: Its Planning, Management and Cost,” by Stephen Th. Possony, with an introduction by Lieut. Colonel T. A. Lowe, D. 5.0., M.C. A DETACHED SURVEY. Herr Possony is a German statisticion, economist and student of the art of war, whose investigation of a mass of data, spread over at least 200 books and reports, has been checked by experts. Except for the magnetic mine and certain quite recent developments in aircraft, he is cognisant of all the modem machinery of offence and defence. His book, the translation of which from the German has been excellently done by Donald and Marianne School, was written In 1938 before the Munich crisis, but the new edition now before me shows that it has been studied since that crisis with respect by eminent Continental critics. Its merit in Australian eyes lies in the fact that it is—as far as human survey can be—a detached survey. Herr Possony is a German, and he quotes German generals freely in his book, but the book might have been written by an Englishman or a Frenchman so free are its pages from bias. Indeed the opinions of Liddell Hart and of French and Belgian authorities weigh as heavily with the author as those of his own race. Politics and racialism are completely absent from any of Herr Possony’s 234 pages. MAJOR WAR AN IMPOSSIBILITY. In his latest, as in its first edition, Herr Possony sets out to prove that a major war—in the sense of a really successful long war—is an impossibility owing to the hugeness and complexity of factors which warring nations or combinations of nations have to handle and try to control. If he does not prove his case it is not for lack of knowledge of policies, weapons, war economics and a codification of the resources of the great nations. His point is that while the campaigns in Abyssinia, China and Spain have, as Colonel Lowe mentions in his preface, provided data as to modern methods of destruction, a war such as that between totalitarian Germany and the democratic allies is so different an affair that if once the element of "surprise” is absent no nation can hope for military sucess. He claims that there can be no "decisive battle" on land. This is worked out from a dozen angles, backed up by startling figures concerning the potentialities of the land, air and naval forces of the present combatants. The implication also is discoverable in the detailed analysis of the war economy which the Allies, Germany and Russia have already established since hostilities began. The utmost that can be said is that most of Herr Possony’s assumptions and conclusions have been verified by actual events since September 3 last. His discussion of the land forces needed to wage two types of Continental war —Type I: Defensive on land, offensive in the air. Type II: Offensive on land, with strong general armament and air armament —indicate that the present strategy of the Allies is perfectly intelligible to him. WAR MACHINES ESTIMATE. Our author estimates that at one -.Stage of a major war the following would be the war machine minimum needs of the commanders in chief of the land armies facing one another with the Maginot and Siegfried lines as their background:—

BLOCKADE MUST WIN. Probably the most interesting sections of this astonishingly acute book are those predicting the success of the Allied war policies now in operation. Herr Possony does not believe in the utter supremacy of the air arm. He does not think it can replace the artillery, and he thinks that its unlimited expansion—desirable as it is is .very difficult of attainment. “Under,” he writes,” the most favourable conditions not more than one in 1000 of the entire population of any country is suitable for flying, and probably a still smaller number for driving tanks.” To him "the aeroplane is the weapon par excellence of strategic attrition,” but not the decisive weapon. In as far as Herr Possony inclines towards prophecy, he supports the hope of the Allies that, combined with their control of the high seas and their preservation of a maximum trade with neutrals and oversea friends and relatives, the economic and naval blockade will be the most powerful means of forcing submission by the enemy. After debating various theories and the experience of the wars of this century he writes: “Blockade will, therefore, be the one and only effective weapon, and not so much because it starves the population out, but because it makes production impossible even for the smallest war requirements. From whatever side one considers the problem of modern warfare, it appears that the most effective results can only be achieved by blockade and interrupting production. Military force is no longer the strongest force, it is economic force which has become the greatest power in the modern world in the event of a great war of long duration.”

A study of the chapters from which these quotations have been taken throws a vivid light on the rationale of the control of capital, imports, prices, etc., now exercised in London, Paris, Melbourne, Sydney and Ottawa by those whose duty it is to mobilise our entire financial resources, public and private, for the pursuit of that economic war which may be won, whereas military and air operations may be inconclusive. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Herr Possony his book is stimulating and illuminating to all candid minds.

Strength at any time Annual requirements of the year (Strength X loss, (in thousands). (in thousands). Defensive. Offensive. Defensive. Offensive.

Machine guns 80 100 160 200 Guns 15 22.5 30 45 Anti-tank guns 8 16 15 30 Anti-aircraft guns 25 25 38 50 Trench mortars 12 60 25 120 Armoured cars 12.5 40 25 120 Armoured cars for transport 10 —- — 30Reconnaissance & defence aeroplan' 4 8 8 10 Artillery observation aeroplanes 4 10 12 30 Bombers 5 22 15 65 Fighters 2.5 13 7.5 39 Searchlights and listening devices 100 100 120 150