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THURSDAY. NOVEMBER 1, 1923
m »EXT WM.
WH*N H. G. Wells wrote his novel j
"The War in the Air** he was looked
upon as an entertaining romancer and I
a second Jules Verne. Judging by I
recent progress in invention and j
science, bia forecast may possibly be
realised in a terrible fashion. Since '
the end of the Great War, which some
people aaid was to end war, the de-
velopment of aviation has advanced by
leaps and boonda, and the struggle for
supremacy of the ah* has taken the
place of the former armament competi-
tion by land and sea. The lessons of
the but war have bean studied and
laid to heart, and ¡rt ia no secret that
all the Great Powers have their wa*
programmes of air offensive» sod ne-
rena* ve« mapped ont hi detail am«) kept
up to data for «se if required.
The first reqmsit* of omi rae- is an
sir farce ol jrreat power and numbers;
and as aeroplanes and airships are
mash cheaper to construct and main
I Uia ia**- «m«a»sif^^ a* iwwBf MB
' wising that, at. ih<* disarmament- <un
i«roin:f, there waa such unanimity iu
tho decision to limit naval constru« -
tiun. while shelving tito question ut
aircraft. At tho. present time Frame
is credited with possessing the largest
and mo-a effective air ileet on the
Continent, consisting of about 1¿Ü
squadrons, or 2400 machines; while
England and Italy tie for second place
with about 700 machines each. Ger-
many is [irevented by tl«> Versailles
Treaty from building warplanes, but is
spending vast sums in the development
and extension of her commercial avia-
tion, and in spite of assurances to the
contrary there seems no reason to
doubt tbat these could be rapidly con-
verted to war service just as large pas-
senger liners and other fast boats were
quickly adapted to war requirements
during the recent struggle.
Tho next war will not, it Í3 said,
be a long-drawn-out contest of trench
warfare, where two thin lines are lace
to face at close quarters. All that
will be changed, so the world is told.
Thanks to tho assistance of the chem-
ist, it is claimed that enough damage
can be done in a lew days, or at most
a week, to make, another war unneces-
sary and even impossible for the half
century following. Fighting will prac-
tically be confined-so it is said
to h upe fleets of aeroplanes and
dirigibles operating in a .300 to
1000 mile radius, and systematically
destroying every living thing within
range. Giant airships are to take the
place of battleships; and besides their
own careo of death tbev will carry
fleets of fnst 'planes to p-xtond still
further the area of destruction.
The civil population are not to be
exempt, lur ul: large towns, it is
prophesied, will be subjected to a rain
ul high explosives, Hame bombs, poison
gas, and disease germs. Smaller
squadrons wi-1 go further afield and
destroy communications by road, rail,
and sea, and cut off supplies of food
and ammunition. Man will be forced
to live ia caves like his farback ances-
tors, and exchange a violent death for
one bv poison or starvation. The
war areas, say the prophets of terror,
will be covered by vast clouds of poison
gas, which will destroy all crops and
vegetation . and by penetrating the
underground shelters, convert them
into tombs. Large towns will be
reduced to heaps of ruins in a few
hours by thousands of tons of bombs,
and the only safety zone will bo in the
air; until the new ray emissions are
perfected, when the air fleets will share
the common fate, and chaos claim the
world.
The picture is an appalling one, and
if it is a true one also it needs only
a little more preparation and a suitable
excuse to make it a reality, and create
a situation only equalled by the most
lurid passages of Dante's "Inferno."
But the enormous land army still
maintained bv France, which at the
same time possesses the most powerful
air fleet, shows that the visions of the
airmen are not yet the basis of the
I strategy of militarist Europe.
It was expected that the League of
Nations would provide a means of
settling disputes and preventing war
bv tho establishment of an interna-
tional court of justice; but this hope
has not been realised. In its present
composition it is a weak tribunal, with
no poorer to eive effect to its decisions.
Even the country which gave it birth is
standing: aloof. Until it includes the
United States. Russin, and Germany,
there is very little prospect of it ever
heine more than an academic institn
lion of great promise, hut little per-
formance.
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