tiles, of missiles thrown by powder,
whether cannon or rifle, as it was in Napoleon's time, the change being
in range, precision and destructive power. The only new departure is the
aeroplane, for the gas attack is another form of the Chinese stink-pot
and our old mystery friend Greek fire may claim antecedence to the
_Flammenwerfer_. The tank with its machine guns applied the principle of
projectiles from guns behind armor. Steel helmets would hardly be
considered an innovation by mediaeval knights. Bombs and hand grenades
and mortars are also old forms of warfare, and close-quarter fighting
with the bayonet, as was evident to all practical observers before the
war, will endure as long as the only way to occupy a position is by the
presence of men on the spot and as long as the defenders fight to hold
it in an arena free of interference by guns which must hold their fire
in fear of injury to your own soldiers as well as to the enemy.

With all the inventive genius of Europe applied in this war, the heat
ray or any other revolutionary means of killing which would make guns
and rifles powerless has not been developed. It is still a question of
throwing or shooting projectiles accurately at your opponent, only where
once it was javelin, or spear, or arrow, now it is a matter of shells
for anywhere from one mile to twenty miles; and the more hits that you
could make with javelins or arrows and can make with shells the more
likely it is that victory will incline to your side. Where flights of
arrows hid the sun, barrages now blanket the earth.

The improvement in shell fire is revolutionary enough of itself.
Steadily the power of the guns has increased. What they may accomplish
is well illustrated by the account of a German battalion on the Somme.
When it was ten miles from the front a fifteen-inch shell struck in its
billets just before it was ordered forward. On the way luck was against
it at every stage of progress and it suffered in turn from nine-inch,
eight-inch and six-inch shells, not to mention bombs from an aviator
flying low, and afterward from eighteen pounders. When it reached the
trenches a preliminary bombardment was the stroke of fate that led to
the prompt capitulation of some two hundred survivors to a British
charge. The remainder of the thousand men was practically all casualties
from shell-bursts, which, granting some exaggeration in a prisoner's
tale, illustrates what killing the guns may wreak if the