The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1914. LESSONS OF THE WAR.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15444, 5 September 1914, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1914. LESSONS OF THE WAR.

A bitter aspect of the war is that 200,000 .British troops, landed at Boulogne a fortnight ago to supplement the first i''oree, miglit .have saved Paris from the imminent danger of investment, and there were not 200,000 troops to go. Lord Kitchener has sent some reinforcements, but all the evidence goes to show that he has not had many men to send. The British troops,- fighting with a stubbornness that has never been surpassed, have been pushed back, inch bv inch, because they have been all too few. Indian troops axe hurrying to the scene, but India is far from France. Jri Great Britain they are reduced; to the sad pass of having to begin training only now, when the existence of the Empire is m peril, the army of half a million men that may later turn the scale of conflict. A large part of that army may need months of training before it is prepared to take the field. Meanwhile the Germans are advancing into France. Every mile they go will make it more difficult for them to maintain their lines of communication and increase their other difficulties. But- every mile they go will,be encouragiement, and the more their grip on France is tightened while the big battalions are still upon their side the harder will the task be of'dislodging them.

■ A.British force, great in spirit but small in numbers, lias been tried as even British, soldiers have rarely been tried before; unless tbe Allies can win an early victory the war will be prolonged by montlis and montlis, at tlie cost of hundreds of thousands of precious lives, merely because Great Britain lias been satisfied -to have an army of less than 200,000 men when she might have liad an army of 500,000. notices are being put on sports grounds urging football players and football spectators to enlist. Six years ago it was pointed out by a writer in the " Fortnightly Review ' : that "the greatest of all dangers to peace is the military weakness of Great Britain." He added that France would be amply secure if Britain had a military force bearing the same relation to the German Army that the German Jfavy bears to the Britisli Fleet.'' That would require a force of half a million men, and it is impossible to doubt that, if Great Britain had had such an Army, , Germany would never have commenced her terrible career of aggression. Belgium would be a land of smiling husbandry to-day instead of one appalling- cemetery ; France would be happy instead of fearful; there would not be grief in British, homes. The British nation preferred to put its money into insurance schemes and old age pensions and its physical energies into football. The preference was creditable to its heart, but it was not creditable to its wisdom, as the world is constihited. Kow it is learning-, what it refused to learn from teachers like Lord Roberts, that to be , secure, to be peaceful even, a nation must be strong, and thatold age pensions and insurance benefits are of small worth in comparison with security. If Germany could subdue France and Belgium, and wring huge indemnities. from both of them, the Fleet that she would build in the next ten years would be more formidable to Great Britain's safety than any peril that has menaced it for centuries. The battle must be fought by land as well as sea. No doubt we shall fight it with an ample army before many weeks have passed, but those weeks might have been weeks of peace if an army on only half the Continental scale had existed at the beginning of tlie war, instead of existing, for the most pnH. only as material to be enrolled and trained.