Page:Science and the Great War.djvu/30

24 conversation with the late W. T. Stead, which is printed as a preface to the English translation.

Speaking of a battle with modern weapons he said:

 'At first there will be increased slaughter—increased slaughter on so terrible a scale as to render it impossible to get troops to push the battle to a decisive issue. They will try to, thinking that they are fighting under the old conditions, and they will learn such a lesson that they will abandon the attempt for ever. Then, instead of a war fought out to the bitter end in a series of decisive battles, we shall have as a substitute a long period of continually increasing strain upon the resources of the combatants. The war, instead of being a hand-to-hand contest in which the combatants measure their physical and moral superiority, will become a kind of stalemate, in which neither army being able to get at the other, both armies will be maintained in opposition to each other, threatening each other, but never being able to deliver a final and decisive attack. . . . That is the future of war—not fighting, but famine, not the slaying of men, but the bankruptcy of nations and the break-up of the whole social organization' (pp. xvi, xvii).

'No decisive war is possible. Neither is any war possible. . . that will not entail, even upon the victorious Power, the destruction of its resources and the break-up of society. War therefore has become impossible, except at the price of suicide' (p. xxxi).

'Everybody will be entrenched in the next war. It will be a great war of entrenchments. The spade will be as indispensable to a soldier as his rifle' (p. xxvii).

'All wars will of necessity partake of the character of siege operations' (p. xxxviii).

'Your soldiers may fight as they please; the ultimate decision is in the hands of famine ' (p. xlix).

One final quotation which, had she taken it to heart, would have saved Germany great treasure and much bitter disappointment.

 'Unless you have a supreme navy, it is not worth while having one at all, and a navy that is not supreme