Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights Part 24

All of the powers have armored automobiles, and in Germany, England and France the exigencies of conflict impelled the Governments to practically commandeer all of the automobiles in the countries for war purposes. Many of these cars were turned into armored cars of the lighter type, and the number of such automobiles in use runs far into the thousands. The United States has not made much fuss about it, but has had armored cars in the regular army for several years.

The experience gained in the campaign in Europe indicates that the military authorities believe the high-powered, speedy cars, clad with armor of medium weight and mounting one or two machine guns, are the most valuable of all the "sheathed" cars. They can appear suddenly, maintain a withering fire for a short period and then disappear suddenly.

As an instance of what the armored car accomplishes, it is recited that when the German troops sought to invade the Belgian town of Alost a detachment was sent through the streets in armored cars. The houses were barricaded and the Germans feared snipers. There were no snipers when the motorcars returned. More than a thousand Belgians were mowed down in the streets by the rapid fire guns of the armored cars.

IMPORTANCE OF THE AUTOMOBILE.

Evidence of how greatly the automobile is appreciated in its relation to the modern army service is found in the fact that when America entered the war and began the mobilization of its forces and resources, the Quartermaster at Chicago was ordered to obtain bids for the delivery of 35,000 motortrucks of one and one-half tons capacity and 35,000 trucks of three tons capacity. Bids were also asked on 1000 five-pa.s.senger automobiles, 1000 runabouts, 1000 automobiles, in price ranging from $1500 to $2000, several hundred motortrucks of half, three-quarter and one ton capacity and 5000 motorcycles, and the same number of motorcycles with auxiliary pa.s.senger capacity, or side cars.

The motortruck, too, in modern warfare is a shoeshop. The care of the feet is an important matter in the army, and the men, besides being provided with good footwear, must have that footwear kept in serviceable and comfortable condition. It is some job to keep the shoes of half a million or more men in repair, and the United States Quartermaster Department, in connection with their mobilization, included in its equipment portable motor-power machines to nail on half soles for troops in garrison and campaign. Such a machine will nail on a pair of soles in five minutes. It weighs but 27 pounds and can be transported with the troops on a motorcar, and may be used anywhere to keep the shoes in serviceable shape until the troops can reach permanent camps, where new footwear can be provided.

FRANCE'S TRANSPORTATION RESOURCES.

At the outset of the war France is said to have had 100,000 pa.s.senger cars, 25,000 motorbuses, taxicabs and motorcycles and 10,000 motortrucks available for military use, and was able to give the various departments of her military organization excellent transportation service. Besides this, she had squads of automobile aeroplane cannon, and about 84 12-centimeter and 15 5-centimeter Rimailho howitzers of the armored artillery type. Russia is said to have been weak in automobile equipment, having less than a thousand trucks in the Empire available for military use; but this number was rapidly increased, upward of half a thousand having been purchased within a short time.

Austria and Germany together are said to have had something like 1500 trucks and about 20,000 pa.s.senger cars available for army use. At the start Germany alone had 250 armored automobiles, several score of searchlight automobiles, or night scout cars, probably 8000 motorcycles and more than 500 motor-driven field guns, besides the big tractors used to draw the heavy howitzers. Aside from this, practically all the motor vehicles in the country were commandeered, numbering upward of 75,000.

While they are stationary devices, the forts which were stormed by the Germans at Liege and Antwerp are properly part of the military equipment used in the war. These forts, known as turret forts, are described on preliminary inspection as looking like a row of huge tortoise or turtle sh.e.l.ls rising a few feet above the ground. The sh.e.l.l is, however, a sh.e.l.l of chilled steel. Through it the guns protrude and are operated very much like the guns on a battles.h.i.+p, the turret revolving. Under the dome are vaults and the compartments of concrete, containing the mechanism for moving the turrets, operating the guns, lifting the big sh.e.l.ls and handling the ammunition generally.

The fortifications, which at Antwerp included nine intrenched sections, were regarded as almost impregnable; but when they were built there were no such field guns as the famous 42-centimeter guns which the Germans brought to the attack. The forts themselves had no guns larger than a 7-inch caliber.

FRANCE'S ARMORED FIGHTING MACHINES.

In the matter of movable guns, the French and Germans both had them mounted on armored trains. One such train used by the French included armored locomotive, flat cars on which were mounted the guns in "barbettes," or steel turrets, and completely protected armored cars, used to transport troops or detachments of men.

A feature of the train was the observation tower. It was mounted upon what would ordinarily be the cab of the locomotive. Such towers have in one form or another become very common in the war. One type resembles the motortruck ladder and platform devices used by the man who repairs electric lights and wires in our city streets. Another is patterned after the hook and ladder truck of the fire department. The tower, or ladder, is raised after the fas.h.i.+on of the ladders in fighting a fire. A couple of soldiers turn a crank, and the ladders are raised to a perpendicular position and extended high into the air on the sliding or telescope principle.

The German and Austrian engineers also utilize observation ladders of a less complicated mechanical nature. In use, and with a soldier perched on top of them, they remind one of the toy devices with which we played as children, using the slotted acrobats to do wonderful things atop the "ladders." The ladders are carried in short sections, which may be fastened together in a variety of ways, but a good idea of the manner in which the ladders are used may be obtained if you can imagine a letter Y made of ladders and turned upside down, with a soldier standing on top of it.

THE IMPORTANCE OF OBSERVATIONS.

And making observations is a highly important matter in modern warfare; more important than it was in the old days. The long-range guns are aimed and their fire directed by observation and calculation. The gunner cannot see the target he is required to hit. His job is a mechanical one--perhaps it would be better to say scientific--for he must read mathematical calculations and interpret them into accurate gun action.

The guns may be on one side of a hill and the enemy on the other, and they may be miles apart, yet the gunner must be able to get the range.

His efforts are directed by observers in aeroplanes or balloons, and the range is established by calculations, so that the gunner must be proficient in geometry, trigonometry and mathematics generally.

Not all the great guns in the war when it started were owned by the Germans, for England had 100-ton Armstrong pieces which were capable of hurling a 2,200-pound projectile; but it was the modification of the design of the large caliber guns and the method of mounting them, which permitted them to be drawn wherever needed, that gave Germany such an advantage.

Most of the big guns are in the navy--on the huge dreadnoughts and battles.h.i.+ps--and therefore the fortifications at Helgoland, which are designed to resist the bombardment of the heaviest naval guns, must be regarded as equipment. Helgoland is the protecting fort of Germany's most vulnerable point. It is the Gibraltar of Germany, and protects the entrance to the Kiel Ca.n.a.l from the North Sea. If the British could get past the fortifications to the Kiel Ca.n.a.l, it could establish a close-in blockade which would render Germany helpless in a short time.

Helgoland is an island fortress in the North Sea, in the center of which is a mortar battery mounting 11-inch and 16-inch guns, capable of puncturing the decks of the battles.h.i.+p which comes within range; and these batteries have a range of from six to eight miles. The batteries are ranged in tiers, one above the other, to a height of almost 180 feet above the sea level, the heavy guns and pieces being placed below and the lighter ordnance in the upper tiers. The guns range from 17.7-inch caliber down to 8.2-inch. Germany calls Helgoland the "fortress impregnable," and the developments of the war seem to indicate that the description fits.

SMALL GUNS OF VARIED INTERESTS.

In the smaller guns used in warfare there are many varieties of interest. The United States prior to and with their entrance into war, particularly during the period of the trouble along the Mexican border, experimented with almost every known make of rapid fire machine and field gun, and there was for a time much criticism because the government did not adopt for army use the Lewis gun, which was adopted by some of the foreign countries.

The German army rifle carried by all the infantry is of the Mauser type, first introduced in 1888 and gradually improved until 1898. The weapon, because of the adoption of the improved model in 1898, has come to be known as the "ninety-eight gun." It is a quick-firing weapon, from which 20 to 30 shots a minute may be projected by the soldier. The gun is universally used and has a caliber of 7.9 millimeters, which provides for the use of the smallest bullet which will work sufficient injury on the enemy to make its use profitable.

Experience in the Russian-j.a.panese war proved to the military authorities that the use of a smaller caliber was not advisable. It was found that the smaller bullet could, and in many cases did, pa.s.s through a man's body without actually rendering him useless, and that in a large percentage of cases--more than one-third--the wounded were back with their troops within a few months.

In the United States all of the forces are now provided with standard arms or weapons. The army, the Marine Corps and the organized militia of the States, absorbed into the body proper of national troops, have the same firearms--the same service rifles, the same machine guns and field guns and the same automatic pistols. One kind of cartridge--containing a cylindro-conical bullet of copper-nickel, with a lead core--serves for all rifles and for the machine guns as well.

OLD FLINTLOCK IN WAR.

Many people, perhaps, will be surprised to learn that the Mexican war was fought mainly with the antiquated flintlock muskets. When the trigger was pulled the flint came down hard upon a piece of steel, and the resulting spark was thrown into the "pan," igniting a pinch of powder. The fire ran into the powder charge and the gun went off. Round b.a.l.l.s were used, and the loading was done with the help of a ramrod.

There were already percussion rifles in those days, but General Winfield Scott, who bossed the Mexican war, declared that he would have nothing to do with those new-fangled weapons. The old smooth-bore flintlock was good enough for him. In truth, the percussion gun of that period was not as reliable as might have been wished. The cap was liable to get wet and to fail to go off, whereas a good flint could be counted upon to yield a spark every time.

It was not until 1858 that the percussion rifle, still a muzzle-loader, was generally used by the United States army. The Springfield, which was the first breech-loader (one cartridge inserted at a time) came along in 1870. In 1892 it was replaced by the first of our magazine rifles, the Krag, and simultaneously we adopted smokeless powder, a European invention.

The regulation United States service rifle is a great improvement on the Krag. It is loaded with "clips," holding five cartridges each. The velocity of the bullet is greater, and the accuracy and rapidity of fire are superior.

FIGHTING RANGE 800 YARDS.

In the Mexican war the ordinary fighting range, with the smooth-bore flintlock, was about 250 yards. In the Civil War, with the percussion muzzle-loader, it was 350 to 400 yards. With the new service rifle, the fighting range is 700 to 800 yards, and the infantryman is able to fire at least twenty times as many shots in a given number of minutes as was possible fifty years ago.

The field artilleryman carries no rifle, but is provided with a 45-caliber automatic pistol and twenty-one cartridges. The men who compose the machine-gun platoons have no rifles, but each one of them is armed with the same sort of service pistol and a bolo. The latter is a weapon new to our army, adopted as a result of military experience in the Philippines. It is in effect a machete (a sugar cane chopping knife), shortened and made heavier. At close quarters it is a formidable weapon.

The bolo embodies the best principles of the various razor-edged fighting blades of the Filipinos, and was first adopted as a side arm of the Marine Corps officers. The bolo, which is much heavier than an ordinary sword, measures 24 inches from tip of handle to tip of blade, and is forged from a piece of file steel.

For many years the Marine Corps, except upon dress occasions, has had no cutting weapon. It is not strange, therefore, that many of the officers of the corps, while on duty in the Philippines, adopted for use in the field that weapon of the Moro tribesmen.

The introduction of the bolo as the field arm of the Marine Corps--the sword having given place to the pistol several years ago in this branch of the service--robs the time-tried and traditional Mameluke saber of the corps of the distinction of being the only cutting weapon in the equipment of this division of the Government's sea fighters.

The Mamelukes are inseparably a.s.sociated with the military history of Egypt, the first country in which a regular military organization was established, and a country in which the fighting element was the most honored and powerful of all cla.s.ses. This type of blade was adopted by our Marine Corps in 1825, and later by the officers of the Royal Horse Artillery of England.

Until recently the allowance of machine guns in our army has been two to a regiment, but abroad four to six are used.

AUTOMATIC MACHINE RIFLES.

These guns are automatic machine rifles, firing ordinary rifle cartridges, which (in the Benet-Mercie weapon, a French invention which we have adopted) are supplied in bra.s.s clips of thirty. A small part of the gas generated by the explosion of the individual cartridge operates the mechanism, discharging the bullet, throwing out the empty sh.e.l.l and making ready for the next shot.

A machine gun is designed to enable one man to fire the equivalent of a volley, or series of volleys, discharged by an entire platoon (one-third of a company) of infantrymen. As at present developed, it represents a step toward the evolution of a shoulder-rifle that will throw a continuous stream of bullets.

The latest government rifle--the weapons of the individual soldiers--are manufactured at the Springfield (Ma.s.s.) Armory, which is the government's great small-arms factory, and at the Rock Island (Ill.) a.r.s.enal--the facilities of the latter having hitherto been held in reserve for emergency purposes. The rifle cartridges are turned out at the Frankford a.r.s.enal, in Philadelphia, and at private plants in Lowell, New Haven, Bridgeport and Cincinnati. These concerns and another near St. Louis also make the cartridges for the automatic pistols.

At the outbreak of the world war we had 150 batteries of light field guns and 45 batteries of heavy artillery (four guns to each battery), including cannon provided for by Congress, and since then delivered.

There was an inadequate supply of ammunition for the heavy guns.

MUNITION SUPPLY AUGMENTED.