Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 301, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1912 — NOT A MATTER OF FIGURES [ARTICLE]

NOT A MATTER OF FIGURES

Success In Warfare by No Means Always on the Side of the Biggest Battalions.

The outcome of the fighting,in the Balkans is a terrible shock to the experts who are addicted to winning and losing battles on a strict mathematical basis. The naval man balances weight of broadside, and speed against speed, and assigns victory on the basis of a superiority of 2,500 pounds in weight of broadside and one-sixteenth of a knot in speed. And when real war comes a torpedo-boat stands up to a.battleship and puts it out of commission. The land warrior balances gun against gun, battalion against battalion, regulars against regulars, and reserves against reserves. And when war comes, a division of reserves with inferior artillery drives two divisions of regulars before it. The expert speaks in a perfunctory way of morals, but his heart Is in his figures. When the Greeks, who fifteen years ago fled like sheep before the Turks, drive the Turks, like sheep before them; when the Servians, who are set down as a non-fighting race, gq to their death like Japanese samurai, the expert grows aware that there are certain non-mathematical factors jwhich enter into the game of war; such as the inspiration of a just cause and the impetus of national self-preservation. But in a little while the expert forgets and is once more busy with his arithmetical books.