Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 172, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1913 — Age of Machine Soldiers. [ARTICLE]

Age of Machine Soldiers.

Particulars of the alleged invention of a machine soldier by a Danish engineer, have been widely published in the French press. The machine soldier consists of a cylindrical device which, in time of peace, could be burled under the ground, and in time of war, by pressing a button, it could rise to the surface, discharge 400 shots and kill the enemy at a distance of 2,000 yards. . The amusing calculation is made that if a line of these mechanical soldiers were placed all the way from Vesoul or Belford to Sedan, a distance of IQO miles could be made ‘practically impassable for any army, especially if the mechanical soldiers were placed at a metre’s interval from each other, and in a line 20 deep. This would require only 3,200,000 mechanical soldiers, and assuming that each cost 500 f, the whole thing could be done by spending £ 64,000,000. By pressing a few electric buttons an army of more than 3,000,000 soldiers would thus spring out of the ground and protect certainly that part of the frontier. But all the ordinary inhabitants would first have to be warned out of the danger zone. Is the age of the soldier automaton :really coming?