mount of lethal gas may be fatal to
him.

Most of the novelties of the war were merely extensions of what was
already known. To increase the caliber of a cannon from 38 to 42
centimeters or its range from 30 to 75 miles does indeed make necessary
a decided change in tactics, but it is not comparable to the revolution
effected by the introduction of new weapons of unprecedented power such
as airplanes, submarines, tanks, high explosives or poison gas. If any
army had been as well equipped with these in the beginning as all armies
were at the end it might easily have won the war. That is to say, if the
general staff of any of the powers had had the foresight and confidence
to develop and practise these modes of warfare on a large scale in
advance it would have been irresistible against an enemy unprepared to
meet them. But no military genius appeared on either side with
sufficient courage and imagination to work out such schemes in secret
before trying them out on a small scale in the open. Consequently the
enemy had fair warning and ample time to learn how to meet them and
methods of defense developed concurrently with methods of attack. For
instance, consider the motor fortresses to which Ludendorff ascribes his
defeat. The British first sent out a few clumsy tanks against the German
lines. Then they set about making a lot of stronger and livelier ones,
but by the time these were ready the Germans had field guns to smash
them and chain fences with concrete posts to stop them. On the other
hand, if the Germans had followed up their advantage when they first set
the cloud of chlorine floating over the battlefield of Ypres they might
have won the war in the spring of 1915 instead of losing it in the fall
of 1918. For the British were unprepared and unprotected against the
silent death that swept down upon them on the 22nd of April, 1915. What
happened then is best told by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his "History of
the Great War."

From the base of the German trenches over a considerable length
there appeared jets of whitish vapor, which gathered and
swirled until they settled into a definite low cloud-bank,
greenish-brown below and yellow above, where it reflected the
rays of the sinking sun. This ominous bank of vapor, impelled
by a northern breeze, drifted swiftly across the space which
separated the two lines. The French troops, staring over the
top of their parapet at this curio