Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1879 — Losses in War [ARTICLE]

Losses in War

It was one of the dreams of the friends of peace thirty years ago that the vast improvements making even then in machines for the slaying of men would soon make war a game so deadly that kings and nations would cease to play at it. The dream was a delusion. Improvements in arms encourage instead of discouraging warfare, as they are followed invariably by a decrease in slaughter. It is not necessary to go back to the battles of antiquity when the fighting was hand to hand and no quarter was shown except with an eye to profit; to themereiless and brutal days of Cannse, when 40,000 out of 80,000 Romans fell; of Zama and Metaurus, when the Carthaginian armies were destroyed;' of Hastings, when the victorious Normans lest 10,000 men out of 60,000, or of Cressy, when 30,000 out of 100,000 French soldiers were slain. Consider the work of the old smonth-bore, muz-zle-loading musket, used in the great wars of Mai bo rough, Frederick and Napoleon, in conjunction with smoothbore artillery. If we leave out of account such battles as Vitoria, Ross bach or Leuthen, which was speedily decided by tactical skill or obvious and overwhelming superority in numbers at Zorndorf of 32,00 u Russians 11.385 were killed or wounded, and 21,531 of 50,000 Russians, or 35 and 43 per cent. At Austeriitz the loss was 13£ per cent, of the force engaged: at Jena, 17; at Prague, 17J; at Friedland, 21 ;i at Waterloo (of the English), nearly the same; at Marengo, 23J; at Borodina, 32; at Eylanand Salamanca, > nearly 34 j. According to the figures given by Col. cooke, the average loss in these ten great battles was as nearly as may be 25 per cent of the forces engaged. After the Crimean war the rifle came into vogue. The Italian war of 1859 was fought with it, and the Austrians used It at Koniggratz, where the Prussians employed tne breech-loader. At Magenta less than 9 per cent of the men engaged were killed and wounded: at Solferino the percentage was almost precisely the same, and yet these were pre-eminently “soldiers’ battles,” decided by “hatmnei-and-tongs” fighting. At Koniggratz the combat lasted nme hours, and the total loss, with rifles on one side and breech-loaders on the other, was not quite 7 per cent. After this the breechloader came into use everywhere and the French brought out their mitrailleuses. The breech-loader was three times as accurate in fire as the old Brown Bess, eight tiuies more rapid and seven times longer in range, not to mention the fact that it prevented excited men from performing ■ such feats as ramming home cartridge ballforemost and sending down a dozen more on top of that under the belief that all thirteen had been fired at the enemy—yet what was the result in the war of 1879? Taking the battles fought while France had any army, we find that at Woerth the loss was 13J per cent., at Spicheren. 11 J, at Gravelytte pot quite nine, at Sedan less than eight, and the bloody field of Mars-la-Tour something under sixteen. In other words we have the table:

Per Cent.. Killed In the days of sword, bow and spear 2? Killed in the days of smooth-bores.. 22 Killed in the days of rides and breech-loaders 8 to 10 When we come to look into the matter in detail the figures are quite as instructive. We hear much about the frightful effect of modern artillery, especially when massed, yet in the total German loss in killed and wounded in 1870-71, of 18,241 killed only 695 were slain by shells, and of 70,636 wounded only 4,389 were hit by these missiles. The sabre is about as grand—or as contemptible—a fraud. With swords and the butt-ends of muskets, which always plays so terrible a part in romantic histories, there were only six Germans killed and 242 wounded in the whole war, though it was a war full of brilliant cavalry charges by ‘the cuira; siers and dragoons, while the lance and bayonet killed no more than 189 men and wounded no more than 574. In other words, of 100 men killed outright or dying of wounds received in battle one is killed by a blow, cut or thrust, and three are slain by shell or cannon-ball. The effect of bayonet and cavalry charges and artillery fire, therefore, may be set down as chiefly moral. a Of course there is an explanation of all this. .The increased power of modern weapons has been met And in a great measure neutralized by the loose order of fighting; the modern soldier, too, is taught not to stand up boldly and face his foe but to crouch down and avail himself of all possible shelter. It is at least an open question whether there is not a slow but steady decadence going on in the warlike qualities of all modem civilized nations, and whether, now that individuality is allowed to assert itself in the extended order of fighting, the military machine of civilization lias not been weakened. Already a German author has recorded the fact that an army nowadays loses its best men first, because the bravest work furthest ahead in the skirmish line. The tendency has been so uniorm in one direction that it looks very much as if we should yet come to inventing arms Qf precision so deadly that the rate of mortality in a pitched bat tle would be a good deal less than a city in a sickly season. While on land a new and loose order of fighting has been introduced offering a difficult target, and the soldier has been impressed with a sense of danger, thought to shun it and allowed some option in doing so, the improvement of weapons in naval fighting has done away with naval engagements. Since the Kearsage sank the Alabama, and the Kaiser at Lissa rammed the Re d’ltalia, and sank the Palestro, there has not been even a skirmish between the fleets of any of the great naval powers, though Russia and Turkey, and France and Germany have been at war, and we may rest assured that after the engagement of Iquique, in which all the Peruvian and Chilian vessels concerned seem to have gone down, commanders everywhere will be confirmed in their caution.

It might be thought that with accurate arms in the hands of trained soldiers a considerable percentage of hits might be made, but incomplete as are the statistics on this point they show that fewer bullets now have their billets than ever before. At Spicheren the Germans hit one French soldier for every 279 catridges expended, and at Woerth 146 of every 147 bullets fired were throw n away. The Russian figuresvfor the late war are not regarded as over-accurate, being suspiciously small, yet they represent sixty-six rounds fired for one man hit. l But we have a more striking set of figures from Zuzuland. The Zulus are described as fighting with great ferocity and boldness, scorning concealment, coming on in dense masses and charging up to the muzzles of the English rifles. > The English troops are splendidly armed, having guns, rockets and Gatlings, as well as their rifles, and in the engagements where they have proved victorious they have largely increased their enemies’ losses by cutting them down with cavalry or spearing them after they have been repulsed. Yetat Ginghilova 5,000 men poured ceaseless volleys into the Zulus for an hour and a •

half at from thirty to 600 yards-ranee and killed 1,000 of them; that is, it would take one soldier seven hours and a half steady work with a MarsiniHenry to pot one Zulu! And atßorke’s Drift, where the Zulus came so close th * l 'they were blown to pieces, bayonetted or clubbed, 130 men firing for twelve hours only ‘‘mowed down” 500 of their savage foes. Arms of precision even against an enemy who comes on In solid array and to close quarter are u <seems, nearly so deadly as the old Tower musket and round bullet with which men fired slowly, it is true, but not for that the less surely, ana - relied more on thqir aim than on their arms for the work. k •