THE RETURN OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13269, 26 August 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE RETURN OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Could the hosts who fought in Flanders centuries ago look down upon the scene ot thei battles they would miss little exce|>t the bow. One cannot include even the arrow, for we drop that nowadays from areoplanes. On the defensive side the steel head, piece has reappeared in the trenches after more than two hundred years of disuse. It is rather better made, considering what is required of it, than the old pattern, and saves many a. head from being broken by shrapnel bullets, which it easily turns. In fact, it is reported to deflect successfully bullets travelling 2500 feet per second or more. Ordinarily speaking, such a projectile would penetrate at short range a halfinch boiler-iron very easily if it struck squarely point on, but the modern bulil'et, 'having a long and tapering point to decrease the air resistance, is fairly easily turned aside if it strikes at an angle, as is Mkely to be the case, v well-sliapedi headpiece. Except for this great penetrating power we should doubtless have body-armor as well; in fact, it is being tried' in Italy. Its place is partially taken by small, loopholed steel shields, behind which a rifleman can work bis way forward with a fair degree of immunity from hits. Another very useful item in defence is the trench-periscope, of which divers patterns may be found advertised in the foreign papers. It as a simple combination of mirrors very useful for looking over a parapet, either directly or with a pair of binoculars, the mirrors being made large enough to permit the latter use. Old Hevelius, who flourished: about 1650, might well smile to see his polemoscope put to such great use. This instrument, on which he set great value, was quite exactly the same thing, except that it was combined with a single-barrelled opera-glass. Its modern form is merely better made and gives a bigger field. . "The barbed-wire entanglement is substantially the old abatis improved in structure. A tangle of barbed wire is certainly better than a small tree with its limbs carefully sharpened and turned point forward to the enemy, particularly if the wire is thoughtfully painted green,, as in some large shipment recently, go as to make it less conspicuous. In -the same connection one must not forget the pits, with sharp stakes driven at the bottom, and the amiable . caltrops—those four-pointed iron affairs which, thrown on the ground, always stand with one point up. The old antes

, and there in the trenches just as serviceable as when Ciesar's legions used it with less dangerous projectiles. Indeed, it and similar weapon* are singularly convenient when the ranges draw within that which can be conveniently managed by an ordinary mortar. The German fire-throwing machine, too, conies of an ancient and honorable lineage, going back to the days when the besieged doused the enemy with boiling oil and burning pitch. It is a very simple device, this flaming projector— merely a tank filled with petrol under a pressure of several hundred pounds per .square inch and provided with a suitable long nozzle from which the liquid, inflamed by an electric spark as it leaves the tube, can be directed in a neat stream into the enemy's trenches over a distance of a hundred feet or so. Had petrol been available live bundled years ago it would have been welcomed for similar use on many a castle rampart, bven the bomb, spreading poisonous gases, cannot lay claim to high novelty since it is a direct descendant of the Chinese stinkpot, which goes back *o unknown centuries. The wholesale use ot deadly gases poured from the trenches and borne by the wind against the enemy, seems, however, to bo 'in innovation—a refinement, perhaps, if the old scheme of smoking the enemy out, tried in many a mediaeval siege.'' Studying missile weapons a Hfctle further the writer finds reversion to deadly schemes foreshadowed, at least ru the wars of the middle ages. The hand grenade, for generations a favorite short range weapon, lias once more come into ite own. Vastly more etfec. tive than the crude bomb of former days, it ta/kes various forms, sometimes lashed to the end of a stick, and yet again delivered by s-oine rude kind'ef sling. To quote further:— "it is only fair to note that the advent of these cheerful innovations has been met by improvised trenches deeper and narrowed- than of vore, and' when feasible, partly roofed' over so that popping a bomb into them is much like trying to snap a nickel into a slot machine. Similarly, the modern trench is more liberally'provided with traverses, or their equivalent, than were those in which Uncle Toby variously served, so that even when a shell drops into the slot it very likely will disable no more than two or three men

"Ihe mitrailleuse, again, however clever its mechanical design, finds ancient prototypes in the armories of Europe, and, oddly enough, even to sliding block of the Krupp hreaehaetioii may be found in a piece of the sixteenth-century in the Berlin Arsenal, ihe old-time arms-maker was far lesdeficient in inventive ingenuity than in means of execution. "Mine." countermine, and petard, all have their modern equivalent., reinforced bv gunooiton and trinitrotoluol, but used with no more desperate courage now than in the 1 lui'ty Years' War. "Even the familiar scheme of screening guns and men bv carefuly-placedr foliage harks hack to the time when Mtrnam Wood came to Dunsinane. In adroit concealment, however, the war widely utilised an improvement whu-n is strictly of modern origin: the paint. ing of ship.-., guns, and'even men, ill streaks and spots of varied colors, so that they are quite lost in the shifting light over either sea or land. This its origin, doubtless, ju recent investigations of protective coloration in certain animals, which nature has provided with spots and streaks that blend so perfectly with the creature's wonted surroundings as to render it almost invisible at a short distance. Here increasing knowledge of the conditions of visibility has enriched the art or war with a radically new device. "All in all. it is rather remarkable to discover how close-range warfare of the present has brought back means of destruction altogether similar to those of tfe.> ferocious hand-to-hand struggles of the middle ages."