AUTOMOBILE 



51S 



AVALANCHE 



development of the automobile for military 

 purposes. In a small way motor vehicles had 

 been used by the British in the South African 

 War (1899-1902), by the Italians in Tripoli in 

 1912, and by the Bulgarians in the Turko- 

 Balkan War in 1912-1913; but it remained for 

 the War of the Nations in 1914 to demon- 

 strate that the automobile, perhaps more than 

 any single weapon of offense or defense, has 

 entirely changed the character of war. When 

 Napoleon once remarked that an army fights 

 on its stomach, he meant that its movements 

 are dependent on the mobility of its food- 

 supply. Once it was frequent occurrence for 

 an army to wait for its supply trains, and 

 Frederick the Great is known to have altered 

 his plan of campaign on several occasions in 

 order that his troops might keep close to their 

 food supplies. Now it sometimes happens that 

 the transport trains wait for the army, and 

 rare are the instances in which food and am- 

 munition fail an army because of poor trans- 

 portation. 



The automobile has made possible the rapid 

 movement of men and supplies on a scale hith- 

 erto believed impossible. It has brought tons 

 of food and ammunition to millions of men 

 under circumstances in which horses could have 



ARMORED AUTOMOBILE 



Average type of automobile used in offensive 

 attack in the War of the Nations. 



brought only pounds to thousands. It has 

 made possible more rapid attacks and retreats, 

 and has unquestionably brought death to added 

 thousands of men. On the other hand it has 

 saved thousands of lives, for men who other- 

 wise would have lain on battlefields for hours 

 or days have been transported almost in the 

 twinkling of an eye to hospitals far from the 

 firing line. Within ten days after the beginning 

 of the war, the nations under arms were using 

 over a quarter of a million automobiles in the 

 field, and the number constantly increased as 

 fast as factories at home and in the United 

 States and Canada could finish new ones. 

 They are used for every conceivable purpose, 

 and everything movable is moved by gasoline 



if possible. There are light scout-cars, and 

 heavy armored cars, ambulances, repair-shops 

 and gasoline-tanks on wheels. There are 

 motor-kitchens, motor operating-rooms and 

 hospitals, and giant tractors drawing siege-guns 

 or supply wagons by the score. There :uv 

 automobiles carrying machine-guns, aeroplane 

 guns, or heavy artillery, and there are others 

 which are really small forts mounted on wheels. 

 In place of the brave courier who rode a 

 breathless horse the despatch carrier now rides 

 in a puffing automobile. From generals to 

 privates the whole army rides in automobiles 

 when speed is necessary, and the horse has 

 almost completely disappeared from the battle- 

 field and its surroundings. France credits the 

 automobile with the defeat of the first German 

 "drive" upon Paris in September, 1914, when in 

 a single night 60,000 troops were transferred 

 by motors from Paris to the battlefield, forty 

 miles distant, to oppose the invaders at a 

 critical point at sunrise. 



Late in 1916 the British forces in France 

 surprised their German foes by producing tin -at 

 armored tractors, weighing over 20,000 pounds 

 and heavily armed, which could travel on 

 "caterpillar" wheels over destroyed trenches 

 and broken walls. Machine-gun and rifle fire 

 could not injure the occupants. W.F.Z. 



Consult Dyke's Automobile and Gasoline~En- 

 gine Encyclopedia ; Russell's Automobile Driving 

 Self-Taught; Manly's Modern Motor Car. 



AUTONOMY, aw ton' o mi, a term derived 

 from two Greek words which mean self and 

 law; therefore it is applied to a state or com- 

 munity which governs itself. In other words, 

 autonomy means freedom in government. As 

 now used it relates particularly to the freedom 

 of a country to manage its own affairs when 

 it is under the control of another country. 

 Canada is a colony of the British Empire, and 

 so far as its relations to foreign countries are 

 concerned is subject to control by the British 

 government, but in all matters pertaining to 

 its own affairs it has perfect freedom, or 

 autonomy. The relation of the various states 

 of the American Union to the Federal govern- 

 ment illustrates the same principle; each state 

 is free to manage its own affairs, but beyond 

 this its government cannot go, for interstate 

 affairs are under control of the national gov- 

 ernment. 



AVALANCHE, av' alanch, from the French 

 idiom, avalance, meaning descent, is the name 

 given to masses of snow or ice that rush down 

 mountain sides. They travel with great force 



