apons of destruction and systems of equipment
and training utterly unknown in the past. Infantry and artillery fire
will have unprecedented force; smoke will no longer conceal from the
survivors the terrible consequences of the battle. From this, and from
the fact that the mass of soldiers will have but recently been called
from the field, the factory, and the workshop, it will appear that even
the psychical conditions of war have changed.

The thought of the convulsions which will be called forth by a war, and
of the terrible means prepared for it, will hinder military enterprise.
But, on the other hand, the present conditions cannot continue to exist
for ever. The peoples groan under the burdens of militarism. We are
compelled to ask: Can the present incessant demands for money for
armaments continue for ever without social outbreaks? The position of
the European world, the organic strength of which is wasted, on the one
hand, in the sacrifice of millions on preparations for war, and, on the
other, in a destructive agitation, which finds in militarism its apology
and a fit instrument for acting on the minds of the people, must be
admitted to be abnormal and even sickly. Is it possible that there can
be no recovery from this? We are deeply persuaded that a means of
recovery exists if the European states would but set themselves the
question--in what will result these armaments and this exhaustion? What
will be the nature of a future war? Can recourse be had to war even now
for the decision of questions in dispute, and is it possible to conceive
the settlement of such questions by means of the cataclysm which, with
modern means of destruction, a war between five great powers with ten
millions of soldiers would cause?

That war will become impossible in time is indicated by all. The more
apposite question is--when will the recognition of this inevitable truth
be spread among European governments and peoples? When the impossibility
of resorting to war for the decision of international quarrels is
evident to all, other means will be devised.

_II.--How War Will Be Waged on Land_

The bullet of the present day can kill at a vastly greater distance than
the bullets fired during the Franco-German and Russo-Turkish campaigns.
The powder now in use has not only far more explosive force than the
old-fashioned powder, but is almost smokeless. The introduction of the
magazine rifle has immensely increased the speed of firing.